Harry Potter: The Flag Bearer of the Throne
by GeniusReader
Summary: This is a story of Harry Potter who discovered his heritage by an accident. It is the story of his journey where he fights the dark and light to uphold the principals that made his ancestors famous and proud. It is a voyage of independent and strong Harry as he establishes the old order once more. No Slash. AU From Summer Before 4th Year. HarryXMulti. Rating M for safety
1. Chapter 1 - The Slip of Goblin Teller

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter world. This is a work of fiction.

**Author Note:**

This is a Harry/Multi story. The pairs are decided and I will stick to the plot I have fixed. Please read and review if you like the story idea. I may have used few concepts that other authors have already suggested / used in their fanfiction stories. In such cases I apologies beforehand. I have read many fanfiction stories, before I started on this and some concepts influence you more than you realize. This is exactly what happened to me. It would be difficult for me to give all the references of all concepts imported from other authors as I don't really remember the original stories. If I do remember a story, I will try to give the credit to said author; though I cannot guarantee you of this rule being followed for everyone and every time. I also believe the major plot line that I am using here is still unique and new. If anybody wants to use concepts / plot from my story they are free to do so. If you give me credit well excellent, if you don't, it is still no problem. As I said, I am not going to fuss over such small issue. If you like the story, then that is all I want and that is my best reward.

Also please remember this is AU world. I have followed the canon world till end of Harry's 3rd year. The story diverts in the summer before 4th year of Hogwarts.

Before beginning with chapter, I would go through relevant house hierarchy and time lines I would be following.

**House Hierarchy:**

1. Most Ancient and Most Noble House (Potter, Longbottom, Bones, Black, McKinnon, Deverill)

2. Most Ancient and Noble (Abbot, Diggory, Malfoy, Nott etc.)

3. Most Noble and Ancient (Greengrass, Davis, Rosier, Prewett etc.)

4. Ancient and Noble (Weasley, Boot, Dumbledore etc...any house with inherited Wizengamot Seat)

5. Noble House (Any other house which can prove its Wizarding ancestry up to 3 generations back.)

6. First Generation (Any new house... New muggleborns)

**Time line:**

1. Hogwarts Founder Era

2. King Arthur Era

3. Ministry of Magic Era

The only point I want to make here is that the Hogwarts was built first and then came the Camelot. Ministry of Magic was founded after this.

Also note that I have given only few houses in each category. Many others are either dormant or not mentioned here. If a particular house comes up I would explain its position there.

Now let's start with the chapter.

**Chapter 1: The Slip of Goblin Teller**

**2nd July 1994, 3.30 AM**

In the smallest bedroom of Number 4, Private Drive Harry Potter woke up at the ungodly hour of 3.30 AM. This was due to the vivid and terrifying dream he just had. The dream was about Lord Voldemort. This was a bad news for young Harry for Lord Voldemort was his sworn enemy. Lord Voldemort had already tried to kill Harry on 3 previous occasions. In the dream he heard the manic, high pitched and cruel laugh of Lord Voldemort. He was very happy because the servant had returned to him. This was the lifeline the dark lord was waiting for. He was already planning to return to the world of living from his enforced spirit like state.

Harry checked the watch and time was 3.30 in the morning. He was sure that sleep won't come to him after this. Now that he was awake and laying in his bed, he started thinking about his life. Last 3 years in Hogwarts had shown he was going to face another difficult year, even though all he craved was for a single normal year. This combined with latest dream about Lord Voldemort and he was sure that somehow he would be involved in this.

This thought process concluded in him realizing that he needed a comprehensive foundation for magic and dueling. He must be prepare to face any music that dark lord will surely through at his way once he gets his body back. Thinking about all he had learned in his time at Hogwarts; he came up to a startling realization – he was absolutely unprepared for any kind of combat. The incident with Sirius was another strong indication for this. He remembered it as clearly as it happened just few hours back – "_there was Sirius on the floor and Harry had wand in his arm. Sirius was unarmed. Hermione had seen to it. He was thinking of the deadliest spell that he knew about and was coming up with blank all the time. Then come Remus and Snape to save the day for him._" This was not a very good state of affairs as far as Harry was concerned.

He immediately decided that he must prepare a strong database of offensive and defensive spells along with other useful charms. He could do this in the summer and then practice those spells once he is back at Hogwarts. Unlike the common misconception that he was an average wizard at best, Harry knew if he applied himself lot more then he could be top of their year. The strong Petronus he had produced to save Sirius was proof of that fact. Now that he had some idea about this year's hardship, Harry wanted to give him a fighting chance. Thus a trip to Diagon Alley was required. In this trip he could purchase few useful books on charms and DADA. Since he was already up for the day he decided to visit Diagon Alley on same day.

He quietly and quickly got up from bed and soon finished his morning rituals. Then debated whether to wait for Dursleys to wake up and then leave by taking their permission or he should just leave by keeping a note. The moment he imagined the face color of uncle Vernon if he told them about his visit to Diagon Ally, his decision was made. A quick check to watch showed it was 5.30 in morning. He had spent almost 2 hours in thinking. He took an old bag pack of Dudley and quietly came down in the living room. From there he opened his old bedroom – Cupboard under the stairs – and removed his trunk. This was done by the same trick that Fred and George had shown him in his first summer back from Hogwarts when they had rescued him. He took his invisibility clock, wand and his parent's photo album. He also took few parchments and quills as an emergency. This was due to the fact the he realized that he does not have his Gringotts vault key – it was with Mrs. Weasley if he remembered correctly. He decided that he could ask for another key once he could confirm his identity. It will also allow him to check his monetary status. He just knew he had lot of money but never bothered to check exact status. With addition of his money pouch, he was ready to leave Number 4. He immediately repacked his trunk back to cupboard and locked it as best as possible – hopefully none of the Dursleys would bother to check it. Then he came back to leaving room, wrote a quick note to Aunt Petunia saying he had to visit some of his friends and that he would come home by evening.

Now all he had to do was leave the house, travel some distance and flag for the Knight bus. But before that, he needed to hide his infamous scar. He knew from experience that magical world mostly worked on impressions. Thus, if he could successfully hide his scar, there is likelihood that he may able to reach his destination under false identity. So he took one of his old shirts and cut it to make a temporary band which he tied to his head so that it could hide his scar. Then after searching Dudley old cupboard, he found an old, dusty hat. He took it, cleaned it as best as he could and wore it. One look in the mirror confirmed that no one will recognize him on the go. Satisfied with his appearance he did exactly what he had thought about leaving the house.

He quietly sneaked out of house through its backdoor, then walked fast towards Magnolia Crescent and then near the park checked if anybody was watching him. Since it was still early morning, the coast was clear and he removed his wand and flagged for the Knight bus. The bus came after agonizing wait of 30 seconds. After paying the required amount of sickles to Stan under the disguised name of James Evans, he boarded the Knight bus for Leaky Cauldron. After a treacherous journey of 20 minutes he was getting down at the said place. It was very early in the morning and by the looks of it, Tom had just opened the bar. So he decided to have a nice breakfast before going to Diagon Ally.

-TFB-

**2****nd**** July 1994, 8.00 AM, Diagon Ally, Gringotts Bank**

Harry was one of the first customers Gringotts bank had on 2nd July. When he entered the bank, only 3 counters were open and one of them was free. So he immediately went to the teller and politely asked "Um…Master Goblin, I would like to withdraw some money from my vault."

The goblin asked "Key?" without looking at him and held his hand so that Harry could give him the said object.

Now Harry was nervous and said, "I don't have my key with me. Is there any other way Gringotts can generate a new key for me? I would pay the charge of course." Harry added the last part as to not offend the goblin bankers.

This was met with a typical goblin sneer as the goblin cursed him in his tongue before replying back, "How typical of wizard youngling, huh? Have you really lost it or have your family restricted your access now? Huh…any way we will soon find out. But be warned human if we found you are lying to us, you will be punished very severely. We don't like the thieves and you would be considered as one if we found you are lying to us. What is your name wizard-ling?"

Harry was properly intimidated by now but was sure that he could prove his identity without any doubt. He replied quietly as "My name is Harry Potter master goblin and I would like to keep my identity secret for now."

Goblin teller was immediately perked when he heard Harrys name. He sneaked a look at scar but found it hidden behind a cloth band. Seemingly satisfied with the information, he asked another goblin to take Harry in to deeper parts of Gringotts. This was again done in goblin language which restricted Harry's ability to understand the proceedings. After receiving instructions, the second goblin beckoned Harry to follow him and took him deep inside Gringotts. Now Harry was in an area where it seemed very high profile goblins would work. There were rows of offices and many had large collection of armor on their doors and inner walls displayed by front side glass wall. The goblin in front of him seemingly knew where to go though, as he carried Harry to almost end of hall and asked him to wait outside. Then he knocked the door 3 times before entering the chamber. After another five minutes of wait, Harry was taken inside and the messenger goblin was gone.

Inside of the chamber was very beautiful and huge even by goblin standard. The rear wall was decorated by various medals (at least that is what Harry assumed) while two side wall were covered by the shelves carrying various account books. The desk in front of him was having a family crest – his family crest to be exact if the Potter written on the logo was any indication of. As he took all this in, Harry wondered why his family was of such importance to the goblins that they would assign a separate goblin dedicated to handle their money. Then his eyes met the only other occupant of the room – an old but sharp and warrior goblin. He slowly put forward his hand and greeted the goblin, "Hello Master Goblin, I am not very sure why I am meeting you, but I am Harry Potter and I wanted to withdraw some money from my vault. The problem was that I didn't have my key and I simply asked for a new key when the teller had directed me to yours office."

The Potter account manager – Sharpclaw – was impressed with what he had seen so far in the young wizard and he was almost laughing at the nervous energy that was seeping out of Harry. After shaking himself back to reality, he shook Harrys hand and told him, "You are at right place Mr. Potter, don't worry. I am Sharpclaw and I have been Potter family account manager since yours grandfathers time. If you need a new key, only I have an authority to make one and hence you are here."

Reassured that he was at right place, Harry took the seat Sharpclaw had offered him. While this was going on, Sharpclaw continued his introduction. "I was beginning to wonder Mr. Potter if you wanted to visit us or not. You are yet to take the Potter heir ring even though you should have done so at the young age of 11. We of course sent you may reminders but you never responded. We thought that since you could not access the family vault till you are magically adult, probably you had decided to do the required tests when you become of age."

This put Harry in thinking mode. He had never received any communication from Gringotts. Now come to think of it, he had never received any letters apart from his known friends. Keyword here is "known". This was surprising and something he would need to look into. Also he did not know about his Family vault the goblin was talking about, so he asked the most obvious question that he thought of "Um…Master Sharpclaw Sir, I have not received any mails from you. And what is the family vault? Hagrid only mentioned one vault to me when I first entered this bank 3 years back."

Now it was Sharpclaw who was surprised. One look at young wizard and he was sure that he was not lying. So the question remained where all the mails sent to one Harry Potter were gone? He decided that it could wait and that he should confirm the identity first. If he is indeed a Potter then they would look into it in more detail. So he produced the specially minted parchment and a sharp blade from his front drawer. The parchment was goblin creation and few drops of human blood would reveal their entire ancestry.

While passing the parchment and blade to young wizard, he explained the process, "Mr. Potter you must drop 7 drops of your blood on this parchment. This will confirm your identity. It is a very special parchment made by goblins for this very purpose. Be warned though, if you are not who you claimed then we will know immediately. So, good luck young wizard. The wound would be healed once 7 blood drops are absorbed by parchment. We will discuss your lack of knowledge once your identity is confirmed."

Harry accepted the parchment and blade. He made a small cut on his right index finger and dropped the required amount of blood on the parchment given to him. Once 7 drops were placed, his wound was healed and Harry marveled at what magic can do. To his astonishment the parchment was now filled with his family tree. But before he could read it, Sharpclaw snatched it and stared at it for 5 long minutes. Then he suddenly left his seat and took parchment with him on his way out of office. The only warning he gave Harry before leaving the office was not to leave his place or there would be consequences.

Now Harry was worried. He was not sure what the result of his inheritance test was, which had put his account manager in very foul mood. The only thing he read was that his name was written as "Harry James Potter". This was good news as this means his identity was genuine and now he could access the vault again. Now that he had some time, he decided to make a list of to-do things for this summer. So he took out the parchment and quill from his bag and started making his list.

_**Harrys To-Do List for summer (2**__**nd**__** July 1994)**_

_Make database of spells for_

_Useful household charms_

_Defensive magic_

_Offensive magic_

_Common transfiguration_

_Read about his family and their history_

_Learn the goblin language_

_Read various dueling strategies and practice stances_

_Check why he does not receive common mails_

_Learn all the spells made in database once back in Hogwarts_

-TFB-

Meanwhile account manager Sharpclaw was very excited goblin as he waited for his emergency appointment with Director Ragnok. His fortunes were very favorable today as he again took a look at inheritance result.

_**The inheritance test**_

_**Name: Harry James Potter**_

_**Confirmed Inheritance:**_

_**From Fathers (James Charlus Potter) side:**_

_**Potter – Gryffindor –Ravenclaw – Peverell – Pendragon**_

_**From Mothers (Lily Rose Potter nee Evans) Side:**_

_**Evans – Slytherin – Hufflepuff – Peverell**_

This was a gold mine. Young Harry had double claimed on Peverell line. He was also very powerful looking young lad from what Sharpclaw had gleaned. Also the fact that Potters were one of the direct descendants from Peverell line and it is most likely that he would be worthy of title of lord Peverell. If his magic is judged worthy by Peverell line then he could become emancipated adult and that would open the large Potter and Peverell vaults to Gringotts. He was very enthusiastic at this prospect and he then would be charge of such huge fortune and its investment.

Finally the director was ready. He eagerly went into chamber of Ragnok and briefly explained his purpose of visit. Then he showed the result sheet to the director. Once Ragnok saw the results, he was equally excited and immediately called another goblin. He then instructed that they bring Peverell and Pendragon Lord rings to him and that they should meet him in the office of Sharpclaw where he was going. He closed all other appointments till next instructions and asked Sharpclaw to lead way back to his office.


	2. Chapter 2 - Learning His Inheritance

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter world. This is a work of fiction.

**Harry Potter: The Flag Bearer of the Throne**

**Chapter 2: Learning his Inheritance**

**July 2, 1994, Office of Sharpclaw**

Harry Potter was not a typical teenager but sitting in a goblin office for last several minutes doing nothing makes things difficult for anybody. Oh, he also had a warning from said goblin about not touching or doing anything stupid while waiting there indefinitely. He was understandably bored out of his mind. "Who knew goblins were such boring creatures" Harry thought. Just to pass some more time and get rid of the boredom he started studying the Potter crest that was present on desk of Sharpclaw. There was Griffin clutching the sword in the middle. Then there was a dragon breathing fire on top side of griffin. The phoenix that was borne through the dragon fire completed the trinity of magical animals. Finally in the clutches of Phoenix there was the message "semper victor, semper proficiens semper iustorum" (Always conquering, Always prospering, Always righteous). Harry did not understand the message correctly and he dutifully added learning Latin to his to-do list when the office door was finally opened and a senior goblin along with Sharpclaw entered the chamber.

The second goblin was even more fearsome than Sharpclaw and if possible even older. Harry had assumed that Sharpclaw would be around 100 years old but this goblin seems to be around forever if the grueling marks on his visible body were any indication. He was also very regal looking goblin. Harry had a distinct impression that he was looking at a very high profile goblin in Gringotts. This though did nothing to settle his stomach. If he was indeed in presence of such highly important goblin then it might have been because of something they have detected that might not have unpleasant consequences. However his worries were unfounded as Sharpclaw introduced the new goblin, "Hello Mr. Potter. Sorry for such an abrupt departure. The result of your inheritance test warranted the attention of our director Ragnok. I am sure he will inform you about further procedure. And oh, here is your result sheet".

So the new goblin was indeed highly placed. He was suited for director's job, Harry thought. He had the unmistakable personality which was a pre-requisite for the job. If the scars on his face were any indication, he was also a fierce warrior. Harry thought all this while taking the result sheet from Sharpclaw. Once he saw the results though; his ability to think properly was gone in an instant. He was brought back to the real world from his daydreams when the new goblin spoke, "Hello Mr. Potter. I am Ragnok, the Director of Gringotts London branch. As your account manager Sharpclaw had indicated, your inheritance test results were indeed very interesting. Let us all seat so we can continue this discussion forward."

Harry mutely accepted the order and retook his seat, while the two goblins took seats opposite of him. It was Ragnok, who started the discussion again. "As you can see Mr. Potter, you have a legitimate claim on as many as 7 magical families. These houses are Potter, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Peverell and Pendragon. Now let's go over your titles one by one. You are an obvious candidate for Potter title. This is because you are the last living Potter. You have few relatives but none of them are Potter. The only catch with Potter title is that you can have only the heir ring now. Until you are an adult in the eyes of Magic, you cannot have the Potter Lord Title. The other condition is mute as it says that previous owner of lord ring should not be alive. Though, the heir ring acceptance is very important in your case Mr. Potter. What it means is that you can free all Potter vaults which are placed in stasis since the last lord and heir passed on for next great adventure. You can then use them to invest the money via Gringotts. Once you become of age, you can then take the lord ring and use the vaults however you want. For time being though, you can access only the Trust vault for withdrawal of any money. I am sure once we are finished; Sharpclaw will go over all remaining vaults with you as far as Potter line is concerned."

The goblin paused to see if Harry was following the explanation. Confirming this by receiving Harry's nod of understanding, he continued, "Now, Peverell and Pendragon titles are interesting. You have inherited Peverell title from both your mothers and fathers side. This may be important as the Peverell Lord ring will judge you – i.e. the magic placed on this ring which is also known as Family magic will judge you – to see if you are worthy of the title. However, for last 6 generations no Potter heir has attempted to take the Peverell Lord ring. This was because previous to them no Potter was judged worthy of the title. The interesting thing about Peverell title is that, almost all pureblood families in Briton are descendant from them. Meaning almost each and every new heir will have some Peverell blood in them. Thus when it became clear to last Peverell Lord that his family would be merged with some other family – he had only 2 daughters and no son – he enchanted the Peverell lord ring through his family magic. He instructed the goblins that anybody who has Peverell blood can try the lord ring. If his family magic deems the candidate as worthy, then they can become the Peverell lord in addition to their other title or role. To our amazement, till date no wizard was deemed worthy by the ring."

The goblin paused again and Harry was grateful for that. Now he knew why his father or grandfather never tried the Peverell ring. There was no point in doing this. If you were not going to be selected then why waste your time and take the disappointment home? Although it seemed that Potters were direct descendant from Peverell, the Peverell family magic had not deemed them worthy enough. He thought he would also not attempt this ring. But the goblin director was of opinion that he might be judged worthy as he had more Peverell blood than anybody. But this should not be the case he realized almost immediately. Many pureblood families were known to marry within the pureblood circles. So there must be at least one heir who had Peverell blood from both of their parents. This begged another question though, "Why was this goblin so sure that Peverell family magic would judge Harry worthy?" He pondered over this question and came to the conclusion that goblins might be more aware of his family history and their connection with Peverell family than they let on. Because of this added information they were able to make such strong guess. But this did not concern him for now. So he decided that he would seek their opinion as to why he should try this ring once they offer him the Peverell lord ring and then he may find some more answers. This discussion had produced another question for him though. It seemed that his mother was not a muggleborns witch as they all believed. But again he decided to wait for the director to finish his explanation before pondering over this question. He would ask for the explanation about his mother's heritage once he had some power over the goblins.

After receiving the nod from Harry, the director continued his explanation with Pendragon ring now. "Mr. Potter, perhaps the most interesting title you have is Pendragon. This was the official title of King Arthur."

Hearing this Harry held his hands out indicating he had a question and asked, "But I thought that was just a myth. Was King Arthur and Camelot real?"

The two goblins shared a look of amusement and concern. The young wizard did not know anything about his own history. Sharpclaw knew he would have to guide this young Potter in correct direction so he can learn the history when time will come. For now he answered Harry, "It is a myth in the muggle world Mr. Potter. In the magical world it is not so. In fact it was King Arthur who gave goblins permission and land to start our bank."

Harry was amazed at that piece of information. He wondered why Professor Binns never taught this kind of history at Hogwarts. He mentally added learning Wizarding history in his to-do list. For now he indicated to Ragnok that he should continue.

Ragnok obliged to the request and continued his explanation, "As I was saying before Mr. Potter, Pendragon title is most interesting and most important in all 7 houses you have claim for. As with Peverell Family, almost every magical in Briton has some Pendragon blood in them. Also similar to Peverell title, the Pendragon Lord would be judged by Pendragon Family magic, though I have never seen the Pendragon family totems appearing for any of the heir. Neither for light sided heirs and lords nor for dark sided family heirs and lords. The information that goblins has is that when the correct person would wear the ring i.e. if the enchantments on ring accepts the said person; then he must face the Pendragon Family Totem. Every pureblood heir undergoes this ritual while accepting his family responsibility. Even your father and grandfather and other ancestors went through it. Now as far as the advantages are concern, if you are accepted as Pendragon Lord, then you can become emancipated. You would be adult in the eyes of magic. Also we at Gringotts will help you in every possible way as was the case in the old days. You will also have the authority to rule the magical Briton and you would be duty-bound to guide this nation towards the equality. That also means you could change the unfair laws that Wizengamot had passed at your will. There are many other responsibilities and benefits of this title, but I won't bore you by listing them now. We may go over them now if you want but I would suggest that you wait till you put the ring and let magic judge you."

Now Harry understood why Sharpclaw had bought Ragnok here. If by a fluke chance he did become the rightful Lord Pendragon then it would have huge impact on goblins and rest of magical Briton. In that case as Director of Gringotts, Ragnok could wield great amount of power to influence Harry. For now though, Harry asked the question "What about the founder's title?"

Again it was Ragnok who replied, "The Founders of Hogwarts had no accounts in Gringotts. This was because their era was before King Arthur's era. What we do know about them is that, you have to fulfill certain conditions and if you survive through it, then the corresponding rings will make appearance for you when you become magical adult. What those conditions are, we goblins don't know and we have never seen any individual who had genuine claim on these titles."

Harry processed all this information. Logically speaking he would have no problem with Potter Heir Ring. As a good gesture he would try the Pendragon ring as well – even if it is just a way to connect to his family. He was still confident that he won't try the Peverell ring, though he wanted some extra information about his family from the goblins. He decided that if it comes to getting more information about his family from goblins in exchange of trying the Peverell Ring, he would gladly do it. With his decisions made he asked Sharpclaw to give him the 3 rings so he could try them immediately. This had made both goblins grinning and Harry was not sure if he liked the way these goblins were smiling. Meanwhile Ragnok had pressed some buttons on side of the desk table and another young goblin entered the room carrying two boxes. Sharpclaw also removed one box from his drawer. Now it was Sharpclaw who took the lead and passed the box to Harry.

He said, "Mr. Potter, this box contains the Potter Heir Ring. Please open the box and place the ring on you right index finger. If your family magic accepts you as a legitimate heir, it will be resized for you and you can hide it simply by thinking. In that case you will become official Potter Heir."

Harry did exactly as he was instructed. He opened the box. Then removed the ring and observed it. It was simple gold band and there was nothing fancy about it. He then proceeded to put the ring as instructed on his right index finger. Immediately there was a flash of magic and then suddenly ring was re-adjusted to his small finger size. The only change that happened was small Potter crest appear on the gold ring. Harry assumed that this way the magic had recognized him as official Potter heir. He looked at Sharpclaw and received his nod of confirmation and acceptance.

Now Ragnok took over. He placed another box in front of Harry. "This Mr. Potter is Pendragon Lord Ring. You know the procedure. But be warned, that on many occasions family magic does not like the wizard. In that case you would feel resistance from the ring while placing it on your finger. If that happens then please don't force the issue as it may lead to unpleasant results which we all would like to avoid." Ragnok finished his explanation and waited for Harry to try the Pendragon Ring.

Again Harry opened the box and removed the ring. Unlike Potter heir ring, this was beautifully crafted ring. There was also a miniature phoenix crafted on this ring indicating the front side. Harry could not place the metal but he was sure that it was not any common metal like gold or silver. He felt a slight pull from the ring and was amazed to see nothing happened when he placed it on his right index finger. Then when he thought nothing would happen at all, suddenly, there was very bright flash of magic. When the light subsided, they all were greeted by the sight of a Royal Phoenix. It was completely white and Harry thought it looked like a Petronus. He also had the feeling that the miniature phoenix that he saw on the ring was based on the very same majestic bird that was in front of them. He also saw that both the goblins were completely bowing in front of the Phoenix. Before he could decide what to do, the creature flew at him and then gripped his head in its talons. Now Harry felt immense pressure on his mind. He saw all his hardships and sufferings that he had gone through last 14 years – first at Dursleys and then at Hogwarts. He knew that he was being judged by the Phoenix magic. After what seemed to be eternity for Harry – in reality only 2 minutes later – the Phoenix released his hold on Harry. The Pendragon ring then flashed once more and resized itself. Now the Phoenix turned to two goblins and let out a small trill. Harry understood it entirely and he was sure that so did the goblins if their reactions were any indication. The phoenix had commanded, "The old order must be re-established. We have found the worthy heir and lord. Support him. Remember your promise to the throne. Help the new lord in any which way he asks. He will guide you back to the correct path. Farewell for now. We will monitor you all and will meet you soon." With this the Phoenix vanished in another flash of magical energy.

Now both the goblins stood up, faced Harry and once again bowed back to him. Harry was momentarily confused by this behavior before he realized that he was now Lord Pendragon, the official heir of Camelot and King Arthur's throne. He immediately asked both Ragnok and Sharpclaw to take seat and took his seat as well. This surprised the goblins. Ragnok was the first one to respond, "My Lord, you should not seat on that chair any more. We can retire in my chamber and then you can command us further."

Harry was again stunned by his response. He told Ragnok immediately, "Master Ragnok, you must call me by my given name Harry. I don't like any of my titles and this My Lord has added to already long list of ones. Even if the Pendragon Family magic has judged me worthy, I have lot to learn. I am at best mediocre student at Hogwarts and although I plan to change it, the fact remains I am very young as compare to you. I will need help from many people if I have to perform to my duty correctly. I think you can understand from our previous discussion, I almost know nothing about the wizarding world. So if anything I would like your help to remedy this situation."

Ragnok was again stunned and he immediately responded, "Harry, I will call you by your given name only if you refer me as Ragnok. You have earned that right by becoming my King. And I guarantee you that I will do everything in my power to help you become the outstanding leader that you have been judged to become. Now I will suggest you to try the Peverell Ring, and I am certain that it will accept you as well." With that he passed the last remaining box to Harry.

Feeling more confident after hearing kind words from Ragnok, Harry opened the last box and removed the ring. It was also made up of very different material but unlike the previous two rings, tis ring had lot of tiny symbols on it. Ragnok clarified that they were many different runes and they were mostly protection runes. Harry shrugged and accepted this explanation before putting the ring on. Once again a bright flash of magic was observed and this time a horse like creature appeared. The only difference was that it had wings and it was much too bony. This time when the creature touched Harry with its mouth at the lightening shape scar given by Lord Voldemort, Harry screamed and immediately fainted.

-TFB-

When Harry woke up, he saw a very beautiful bridge which had an unearthly quality to it. It was very peaceful place even though a very overflowing river was going beneath the bridge. He realized that he was nude but the moment he thought about the cloths, they appeared on his body. When he turned his head, he saw a single bench at the very middle of the bridge and decided that he should sit there and think about his current predicament. Only after sitting on the bench; he could see a single lone very old tree of an unknown wood standing tall on the side of river. As Harry tried to look for other trees, there were none and he was perplexed because of it. In next few moments though, another figure appeared beside him.

"It is wonderful to meet the old friend isn't it, Ignotus or should I say Harry?" he asked.

"Who are you? And why did you call me Ignotus?" Harry asked, totally confused.

"Ah, you are young once more. My dear friend I am Death. Long back your ancestor Ignotus Peverell made a deal with me to save his loved ones and many others. It was here on this very bridge that we made the deal. Afterwards we became very good friends because he upheld his side of bargain very well. It helped save many unfortunate souls. So when the time came for his to start his journey of afterlife, I blessed the three creations of Peverell brothers. The older brothers' wand became invincible in the hand of rightful owner. The middle brother had a gift of seer and he had created the object via which he could summon the dead. He did this so he could raise the army of dead. But it had the curse. The owner must supply the required magic. After by blessing the stone became eternal. Now a rightful owner could summon the dead people without getting any strain on his magic. If both parties agree, then with the help of right lord, any other human may also interact with dead. And finally I made the enchantments of cloak of invisibility that Ignotus had made permanent. Now it was made up from the death veil. It is the very same cloak that you are using since last 3 years." The figure – Death – said.

Now Harry was scared and confused. Why would his ancestor make a deal with Death? And how did this happen in first place? He had so many questions but before he could ask any, Death continued.

"Harry, I can understand you have many questions right now. But time is of essence. The answers to most of your questions can be found in Peverell Family Grimoire. You will have access to it now that you are Lord Peverell. Also find out the Journal of Ignotus. It will help you finding answers of many questions you have about the Peverell Family and Ignotus himself. But this is not the reason why you are here. The Peverell Family Magic Totem is Thestral. It is one of the creatures associated with me – i.e. Death. It has an amazing capacity to find out the lost and tainted souls and return them to me."

After taking a look at Harry, who nodded, he continued "The night Tom Riddle came to your house; he had prepared himself to split his soul once more. Unfortunately the magic that your mother used forced his hand and he could not complete the dark ritual he had planned. But he had already satisfied part of the requirement that splits the soul – use of Avada Kedavra on innocent soul. This forced his soul to split and a small part of his soul attached itself to you. Your scar Harry is not an ordinary scar. It has part of Tom Riddles' soul in it. Now your magic recognized this dark piece and from that moment onwards it has been continuously fighting a battle against this piece of filthy soul. Today when the Thestral found out its existence, it tried to remove it immediately; thus giving me the opportunity to talk to you. Hence we are here."

Again he stopped and took a look at Harry. Harry meanwhile was very afraid of what he was hearing. It seems that Death was finally here to take him. In a way it was immense relief. He need not have to bother about anything now. He had faced some of the extreme battles in his short life and came out alive. Now he need not face such situations ever again. But regret was also there. Now that he was thinking about it, he thought of all the things he had not done in his life or should have done better in situations; like knowing more about his family, learning the good study habits etc. He was also extremely proud of few things though. If he had piece of soul of Voldemort in his head then he must have done great fight without anybody's knowledge and had successfully managed not to turn dark himself. Given the treatment he had received from Dursley family it was a miracle. He had also fought against Voldemort and dark side every year of Hogwarts and come out on top. With all these thoughts in his head, Harry was in internal turmoil. Death was watching this and was well aware that he could not interfere there. That will cross the boundary that all immortals must abide to. But he knew of one thing that will help soothe his young friend. And he did exactly that.

"Harry, you must listen to me. I have not finished my explanation." Death said before continuing, "Tom Riddle was very twisted man. He was well versed in some of the darkest magic that was ever created or thought of. As you are aware he is not completely dead. He had used devices known as Horcrux to make him immortal. In such device you can store piece of your soul in an object Harry. You were one such Horcrux. Now your job is to search all remaining Horcrux objects for he has created more than one."

Death again paused to look at Harry who was now looking much more composed. So the Death continued, "It is your destiny to finish Tom Riddle Harry. You have been chosen as a Leader to fight against the unbalanced that is present in Briton. You must fight it out. Removing Tom Riddle is just a first step. Now there are few more things you must remember before I will have to take your leave. First, Tom Riddle did not kill all of his victims. I know this because we never received their souls in the underworld. He had kept them in a stasis so he alone could revive them and use them for his own purpose."

"Second thing is the memories of soul piece which was part of you are now ingrained to your mind. These are not complete memories as the strength of this piece of soul was very weak and it was not purposefully created. These memories will help you in achieving your first primary goal. Use them well, my friend. But to achieve this goal you will have to learn a lot. It is not an easy path but it is a correct path. Take help from your new friends." Death continued.

"Last thing that you must understand is that being a Lord Peverell, you will be able to access the three gifts that I had spoken about earlier. Where those gifts are, you will have to find it out on your own. These are very powerful objects Harry. Use them with utmost caution. But you must unite them for it is time to unite them once again. The other details about those gifts would also be placed in your mind when you go back to mortal world."

"Now we must end our meeting Harry. I hope I will meet you again when you have lived your life peacefully and have corrected the wrong to right. When you will wake up, you will be able to remember this meeting and will have many extra memories. For time being I have stored them in a way which will not harm you, but you must work on them soon. All the best, my dear friend; for you will need it and I am very sure you will do great many things in the future. For all other questions you may have, you must find the answers to them on your own. This is your quest for rest of your life. Do not fail us as the cost of failure is very high for many others. And the piece of Riddles soul in you is destroyed. You need not bother about it in the future."

With that said Death touched the same lightning bolt scar on his forehead, which prompted Harry to lose his conscious once more.

-TFB-

**Author Note: **In the next 2 sections (only) most of the conversation is between goblins. Please consider that in reality this will happen in language spoken by goblins – Gobbledegook. I will mark this conversation in _italics _to indicate the difference.

**July 2, 1994, Office of Sharpclaw**

Meanwhile in the office of Sharpclaw, the two goblins present were worried about their most important customer and Lord. Harry Potter was unconscious for last 20 minutes and there was no sign of him coming out of it. The Peverell family totem – Thestral – was still guarding the prone form of his master as the ring had resized to match Harrys finger. Suddenly the Thestral looked at them and opened his wings. Then he bended over Harry's body and touched the lightning bolt scar once more and then disappeared completely. This time everybody could feel the presence of excess magic and on closer inspection they realized that it was coming through the young Potter heir. Ragnok understood that he had to make quite a few decisions here. And he needed to hurry about those decisions. It was time to act as the Director of Gringotts.

He immediately asked Sharpclaw to summon a goblin healer to healer wing. He also sent for number of young goblins. When all of them were there Ragnok gave them orders.

"_The young wizard in front of you is Friend of Goblin Nation. This fact should not leave this room or I will personally cut your heads. Now take this wizard to our Medical Wing and ask the healers to treat him and monitor him. I want hourly report on his medical status. Is that understood? You can tell the healers about importance of client and if they have some questions, then tell them to contact me directly. Now go_."

Once the majority of goblins were gone along with Harry, he turned to Sharpclaw and instructed him further, "_I want you to take the blood sample of Mr. Potter and do the ability tests from it. I know that normally we place the wizard in the rune circle but this is not the option here. Ask our ritual masters to alter the ritual and get the results by end of the day. I will instruct you further after that. If anybody asks about Harry's presence here, tell them I have authorized for the same. We will have a proper celebration once Harry comes back to us._"

With this done, Ragnok headed to his office after sending yet another young messenger goblin to bring Rootclaw and Nagnok to his office. When he reached his office, he asked for the account details of Pendragon and Peverell Families. He also asked to get him two senior most goblin account managers available in London branch. Soon afterwards he was greeting the Master goblins Rootclaw and Nagnok. Once the pleasantries were exchanged, Ragnok started the discussion. "_Hello Master Nagnok and Master Rootclaw. Today is very important day in our history. Our king has finally returned to us._"

Here Ragnok paused to see the reactions of two goblins in front of him. Beside raised eyebrow from Nagnok, they did not show any other reaction. So he continued, "_The Pendragon Family Totem – a Royal Phoenix – made appearance today when a young wizard Mr. Harry Potter tried the Pendragon Family ring as per the customs. I was further surprised when he was judged worthy of the said title. However, before going back, the Phoenix instructed me to help the young King in any way possible. He also reminded me of the goblin oath given to the throne._"

Hearing this news, the other two goblins were visibly shaken. This had not happened since the Camelot fell down and Ministry of Magic was formed. Over this period, there were many wars between Goblins and Wizards. Now if the Pendragon Family was indeed back then it was quite possible that they all may live a more peaceful life in an open environment similar to that of Camelot. This was definitely positive news. Only problem was the age of chosen wizard. He was very young at the age 13, though he will be 14 at end of this month. Ragnok then provided his memory of encountering Harry Potter to the two goblins and together they all reviewed it in the personal Pensive of Ragnok. Once the memory was finished, Nagnok was the first one to connect the dots of what Ragnok was hinting at and commented, "_So Director, you want us to prepare the time chamber where we can teach this young wizard isn't it?_"

Ragnok was pleased with the response he received from his chief researcher and brother. "_Yes Nagnok, which is exactly what I want you to do. However while I was talking to young Harry, I had a feeling that his magical education is severely lacking. I think all of us can attest to that particular fact, now that you have seen the memory. I will have to take help from many other wizards to fill those gaps. If my estimates are correct then we will need approximately 12-14 years in time chamber. I would like to finish this in 4 to 6 days. If you can set the chamber such that 8 hours are equivalent to one year then it would be great. Otherwise set it for 12 hours equivalent. But what I also want and this is very important condition is that there should be a way for wizards / goblins to travel to and from the time chamber at specified interval – say at the end of year. This is a must because some of the instructors that I have in mind will not like to spend so many days away. Also there expertise may not be needed till later in the course. Rootclaw I will also like you to assemble a team consisting of our best curse breakers and warding experts. This team will teach Mr. Potter all about curse breaking and warding. I also want you to make access to our library and time chamber. The people in time chamber should be able to access it at any time they want. If necessary, close this library for that specific time period._"

Nagnok was again the first one to comment on this, "_Director, if you give me 2 days, then I can set the time chamber to 8 hours per year time period. Are you ready to spend this much time?_"

Ragnok answered, "_Most definitely, my dear brother. Harry is currently unconscious from his encounter with Peverell Family Magic and is down in the Healer wing. I will also need time to arrange the instructors for him. I think we all can agree that this exercise will start on morning of 5__th__ July at the earliest. That gives you almost 3 days to prepare. However make sure that we have an access to enter the time chamber at end of every 8 hours._"

Nagnok confirmed this by nodding and Rootclaw took over, "_It will be better if close the Library for these 4-5 days Director. You can issue the command saying Library is closed for maintenance purpose. I will make sure that our curse breaking and warding team is situated in one corner of it. So when the time comes we can enter the chamber directly. I will only suggest that you put a clause of magical oath for the instructors so nobody can betray us afterwards._"

Ragnok readily agreed, "_Of course Rootclaw, I will insist on Magical Oath between Mr. Potter and his instructors. And if you plan to take your team inside library, we can add few more wards to Library while we are there. Once you all start teaching Harry, it won't be needed, but this way our ruse of Library maintenance won't be opened up. Now, apart from these two matters, Nagnok I want you to teach Harry about our customs and history. Rootclaw I want you to lead his teaching in Warding and curse breaking. Is this ok with you two? _"

Once Ragnok received the confirmation from the two goblins, he dismissed them. Immediately afterwards three young goblins came to his office carrying the account ledgers of Pendragon and Peverell Family Vaults. With a sigh, he started to take a look at these accounts. But he stopped in few minutes only. He decided that he would wait till his more experienced and currently working account managers took over this job from him. All he needed at this time is how much money these two accounts had in them. He was saved from completing the analysis of two accounts when two senior goblins entered the room.

-TFB-

Senior account manager Norgruk was handling Black accounts for past 50 years. Before that he had steadily climbed up the ladder by successfully managing various lower level accounts. He had a knack of investing money in wizarding world and still generating a huge amount of profit for his clients. It was preciously for that reason current Lord Malfoy was so interested in hiring him for Malfoy Accounts. He had rebuffed the approach till now but with current Lord Black on the run from his own ministry, his position was beginning to get threatened every day. He wondered whether director Ragnok had finally decided to grant Lord Malfoy his wish, when he received summons from director. He hoped and prayed that it should not be the case. Lord Lucius Malfoy was known in goblin circle as very rude and mean Lord. Working for him means you should forget extra money that you might get for generating extra profits from other wizards. He waited in directors' office, while holding his breath for Director Ragnok to open the discussion.

Other occupant of the room, also a Senior Account Manager Axemage was currently handling Malfoy Account. Presence of Black Account Manager Norgruk indicated that director had finally decided to grant the wish of Malfoy Lord. It was a relief for Axemage though. He never liked the wizard and the feeling was mutual. He did wonder though, if he will get the Black accounts now that Norgruk will have the Malfoy accounts. For time being he also waited for Director to start the discussion.

After observing the two goblin managers in front of him, Ragnok indicated that they should take the seats. He immediately asked another goblin to fetch Sharpclaw. While they all waited for Sharpclaw to join them, Ragnok started the discussion, "_Before I come to the exact reason of why I demanded your presence here, I am relieving you both of your current duty. Now I will give you 5 minutes to nominate a new goblin account manager for your respective account._"

This was big surprise news to older goblins. Though each one expected that they may have to leave their current job, they always thought that it was to be an exchange of accounts. They never expected to name the successor for their respective accounts. But director had some other plans it seemed. However they got thinking about nominating their own successors.

Norgruk decided to allow his son – Karlruk – to manage the Black accounts. Although the Black accounts were large, there was relatively small activity going on. Thus Karlruk, whose current position was that of simple accountant – meaning he has to help young heirs to invest their money and keep their accounts of trust vault for more senior manager – would have relatively easy time. This should also give Karlruk enough time to learn the trade secrets and with no Lord Black monitoring him, it would be relatively easy ride.

Axemage was thinking in different direction though. There was a goblin with grudge against young Malfoy heir in the Gringotts. The young Malfoy heir had insulted this goblin many times while he was helping the young heir in managing his trust vault. If he were to nominate this goblin it would be a sweet revenge for all goblins concerned. This would also help Axemage win the favor from said goblin. The oath that each working goblin in Gringotts must take before they are listed for job would prevent them from deliberately misleading their customers. But it did not mean that they have to put their best efforts for all wizards on all occasions. The simple law was "If you respect your Goblin Manager, He will show you the same respect and will work hard for you." Malfoys were known for not following such laws and assigning an equally rude goblin to their account won't do any harm to Gringotts, Axemage reasoned.

So after making their decision, both Axemage and Norgruk nominated their chosen candidates – Griphook for Malfoy Accounts and Karlruk for Black Accounts. The director thought about these nominations for few minutes and then sent messenger goblin to bring both those goblins in director's office. Once the two young goblins were brought in, Ragnok told them of their promotion and asked Axemage and Norgruk to spend next 15 minutes to transfer the current workload.

When the meeting in director's office was reconvened, they were joined by Sharpclaw – Potter account manager. However the director was looking at some sort of result sheet that Sharpclaw had given him. When director Ragnok looked back at them, the serious expression told other three occupants that something big was happening. Although Sharpclaw had some idea about what was going on, he didn't have the authority to view the Ability Test results of Harry Potter in absence his client. Only Ragnok as a Director had that kind of Power. If directors' expression was anything to go by, then it was very similar to that of his expression after viewing inheritance test results. However his musings were stopped when director Ragnok started the conversation.

"_My fellow account managers, you must be wondering what is going on here. So I will give you brief overview of what has happened till now so we all are on same page. After that I will assign you some highly critical jobs. The complexity of your job may increase in next year or so, but I would expect that you three will handle it without making any fuss. Now, this morning we had an unexpected visitor in Harry Potter. As you know, all pureblood families are descendant from Peverell and Pendragon line; young Harry's inheritance test provided similar results. Here take a look at this sheet. It will give you fair idea of what I am talking about._" Ragnok passed the Inheritance test result to Sharpclaw who in turn passed them to Norgruk and Axemage.

He continued, "_As per the protocol, Sharpclaw immediately contacted me and we went back to meet this young heir. After standard discussion, he was offered to take Potter Heir Ring, Pendragon Lord Ring and Peverell Lord Ring. To our amazement all three rings accepted him. Their family magic judged him worthy. Thus we have our rightful King back among us._"

He heard soft gasps from Norgruk and Axemage. It was expected reaction. So he continued, "_Now as you know, there is a huge possibility that he may acquire few more titles in coming year. As of now he is full magical adult. However, his education is lacking. The Royal Phoenix – the Guardian – has directed us to help Harry in any way possible to achieve his ultimate goal. I will discuss that with him, once he wakes up. But this has raised few more important concerns. Chief among them is re-activation of Vault number 1, 2 and 5. As you know vaults 1 and 2 belong to Pendragon family while vault 5 belongs to Peverell Family. I am not sure about other subsequent vaults for those two families, but it is also a possibility. What I want from you three is, for you all to manage all accounts belonging to Mr. Potter. That includes Potter, Pendragon and Peverell Vaults for now. If he adds few more title, you will collectively manage those as well. If require we may take additional help from other account managers as we go on._"

Getting the nod from all three, Ragnok continued, "_For now, Sharpclaw had maintained the Potter Vaults. Plus Harry is not official Potter Lord yet. So we will keep it as it is. What I want you three to do is take the inventory of Pendragon and Peverell Vaults. Check if there are any other stagnant vaults which are activated due to these 2 titles. Then give me rough estimate of his wealth including and excluding Potter Funds by tomorrow evening. I am in the process of arranging proper training sessions for him. I am hoping that we will be able to start this training by 5__th__ July. One more thing, for now this is highly secure information. If somebody enquires about your new role, tell them you are working on a personal project of Director Ragnok and that you have been promoted. And while you are at it, here is the result sheet of Magical Ability Test we conducted through Mr. Potter's blood._"

_**Magical Ability Test**_

_**Name: Harry James Potter**_

_**Magical Abilities Present**_

_**Animagus**_

_**Metamorphmagus**_

_**Natural Occlumency and Legilimency**_

_**Shadow Mage Affinity**_

_**Magic Speaker (can speak with various magical creatures with little practice and understanding)**_

_**Elemental: **_

_**Main Affinity: Water and Air**_

_**Secondary Affinity: Earth**_

_**Standard Magic Affinity**_

_**Major Affinity**_

_**Defensive and Offensive Spell casting**_

_**Transfiguration**_

_**Runes**_

_**Warding**_

_**Charms**_

_**Potions**_

_**Enchantments**_

_**Minor Affinity**_

_**Herbology**_

_**Curse Breaking**_

_**Healing**_

_**Magical Creatures**_

All three account managers were stunned to see this result. Now everybody knew why Harry Potter was judged as a worthy candidate by both Pendragon and Peverell Family Magic. They also had a suspicion about why Dark Lord Voldemort had chosen him as an enemy. If trained correctly, he would become highly powerful Lord and a very good ally.

With all those thoughts in mind they took leave from Ragnok to start their new work. It was very important work. This was once in a lifetime chance and Director Ragnok had chosen them personally. They would do their best to make sure that their future is as secure as it was in the past when Camelot was in full glory days.

-TFB-

**July 4, 1994, Gringotts Healer Ward, 10.30 AM**

When Harry woke up again, first thing he noticed was that he was lying on very soft bed. He slowly opened his eyes and all he could see was white. He wondered where his glasses were and was very surprised when a rough hand put his glasses on his eyes. Now the room came in the focus, he was sure that he was in some sort of hospital wing. Only question was which hospital wing? Before he could ponder this particular question however, a voice from his right spoke up.

"It is nice to see you have woken up from your sleep Harry." Ragnok commented lightly. Without giving Harry any chance to reply, he continued "We were bit worried as you were not conscious for 2 whole days and were losing lot of magic early on. Although now you look OK to me, I will wait for our healers report. However I have used these past two days to do some basic research about your life in general and made some plans in regard to the new information we had before you lost your consciousness. I would like to go over them with you once you are ready, if that is ok with you. But first you need to eat. I will send somebody to get you some food. Then a goblin healer will check you once more before Sharpclaw will take you back to my office. Is that all right with you?"

When Harry nodded his acceptance, Ragnok smiled and left the room. Harry heard him barking out few instructions to younger goblins and then leaving completely. This provided Harry an opportunity to think. His had a slight headache but he ignored it in favor of thinking. So he was out for 2 days. The excess magical energy must have been there as a result of removing of Horcrux. He wondered what plans Ragnok have made. It must have been something big and useful to him. It looked like Ragnok had taken the instruction from Royal Phoenix rather seriously. He was very grateful of the older goblin for taking his care and helping him. On the sad note he remembered that he would have to inform his Aunt Petunia about his new status. He decided to wait for that phone call till he could discuss this matter with Ragnok first. Harry was sure that old and wily Ragnok would be able to provide him some decent cover idea.

He was disturbed from his thought process when a new goblin came into the room carrying some food for him. He immediately ate an early brunch. With that done, another goblin enter the room. This one was different goblin as he had very soft features as compare to other goblin warriors. It was very clear that he was not a warrior goblin. If his dress was any indication then he was a healer. The moment he entered the room, Harry asked his name was embarrassed to know that she was a female goblin named Surgiknife. Fighting his embarrassment, he apologized to her, thanked her for all the efforts she had taken and asked her to conduct her tests.

After almost 2 hours, the healer Surgiknife was satisfied that Harry was alright. With Harry thanking her, she went out of the room to submit her report to director Ragnok. Once she was gone Sharpclaw immediately entered the room and escorted Harry back to the office of Director Ragnok. Harry had greeted Sharpclaw cheerfully and observed that old goblin had worked a lot for past couple of days if his body language was any indication.

It was first time that Harry entered the Directors office. If he thought office of Sharpclaw was huge, then he was so very wrong. This office was even bigger and almost of the size of entrance Hall of Gringotts. There were all kinds of armor attached to right side wall. The wall in front of Ragnok was showing the activities of Diagon Ally. The roof was showing the main hall of Gringotts. Even the desk in front of Ragnok was one of the largest he had seen. There were all kinds of trophies attached to left wall which indicated the achievements of director.

As for the party present in the room, he recognized Ragnok immediately and greeted him. There were 2 other goblins in the room apart from Sharpclaw and Ragnok. It was Ragnok who introduced them as Axemage and Norgruk. "Harry, I am very glad to see you back to full health. Here are your three account managers, Sharpclaw, Norgruk and Axemage. You have already been familiar with Sharpclaw. I have taken liberty of appointing other two to your service for Pendragon and Peverell Families. For now, I would suggest that you allow them to work together. Once you have learned enough about your accounts, then you can make any alternate arrangement which we will be willing to do at that point."

Harry thought about it for the moment before replying, "That is acceptable to me, Director. But I want to retain my Potter heir ship title as it is for now. I will explain the reason to you in due course, but trust me, for now I will work with the finances from my Potter trust vault and other two vaults if they have money."

All four goblins present were surprised by this statement. Ragnok being most senior told him, "That is perfectly all right Harry. And yes, you have enough money in other two vaults. For last two days these three goblins have been working over the two accounts and I will let Norgruk tell you about your general financial status."

Now Norgruk started his explanation, "Hello Mr. Potter. As Director Ragnok has mentioned, you have enough money in the Pendragon and Peverell Accounts. We are making good progress on doing full audit of all 3 accounts, but initial observations have given us the following information."

Here Axemage passed a parchment to both Harry and Ragnok.

_**Liquid Assets of Mr. Harry James Potter**_

_**Potter Family**_

_**Main Family Vault (49): 7,869,453 G**_

_**Trust Vault (687): 45,678 G**_

_**Pendragon Family**_

_**Main Family Vault (1): 10,234,876,598 G**_

_**Supplementary Family Vault (2): No Liquid Assets**_

_**Peverell Family**_

_**Main Family Vault (5): 3,765,087,456 G**_

When Harry saw his financial figures his eyes nearly popped out of its sockets. He had lot of money and he was adult who could use this money without any restriction. This would help him in preparing for the war against Dark Lord. He could also destabilize them by ruining the supporters of dark lord financially. But he would consider those types of plans later. For now he was more interested in hearing the plans that Ragnok had mentioned earlier.

"This is all very good to know, director Ragnok. In a way it gives me comfort that I have enough money to fight the next war that will soon come to us. But for now I want to know about the plans that you have made." Harry told the director.

Ragnok, who was expecting similar response, started explaining his plans to Harry and others. "While discussing with you earlier, what I observed is that you lack a proper understanding of magical world. This may be because you were raised my magic heating muggle relatives and then have to cope-up with lack proper teaching in Hogwarts – at least in few subjects such as History and Potions. I also had a suspicion that you lack a good magical training which would have enabled your magic to develop in much better way. From our healers report, I also gleaned that there was some kind of block on your magic, removal of which resulted in you leaking the magic two days ago. Then, when I took a look at your to-do list, I knew my suspicions were well founded."

After receiving a nod of acknowledgement from Harry, Ragnok continued "What I have done is I took small amount of your blood and used it to perform a sacred goblin ritual which helps us to determine the abilities of owner. This test is normally available for goblins only, but since you are our King, you became the exception. Harry, you have many great abilities. What my plan is to train you under proper and conducive environment so that you can realize the great potential that you have. This will obviously require lot of time – we are talking about 10-15 years here – but I also have a solution for this. In goblin nation, we have an ancient device known as time chamber. This was a gift given to us by Merlin himself. We have kept it safe here in London as the ambient magic required to use such device is present in this branch only – the highest density of magical lay-lines and their network is present here in Briton – thus presence of higher ambient magic. Anyway, for last two days I had asked my team to prepare this device and we are ready to use it. The time equivalence that we will use is 3 years inside chamber is same as 1 day outside. That means you can spend 15 years learning various aspects of your magic and only 5 days will have passed outside. I have also taken a liberty to contact few best professional teachers that I knew and they have agreed to teach you the magic. Of course we will have to pay them but that can be arranged subsequently. I will pass the ability test result to you now. And here is the list of professors who would teach you. I have also mentioned the subjects that they will teach beside them." With that said, Ragnok passed him two sheets.

First was an ability test result. This was interesting read for Harry. It means that he had inherited the ability speak with snakes. It was not because of Voldemort as Prof. Dumbledore believed. This was also eye opener for him as he had not taken the ancient runes in Hogwarts but he had a strong affinity to it. He wondered what his animagus form would be. He had no idea about what metamorphism, shadow mage, Occlumency and Legilimency were. He thought that Ragnok would take care of those subjects. He was little upset with goblins as they had taken his blood sample without intimating him, but he thought that in given situation there were not many options to them. He would give them benefit of doubt for now as it had benefitted them all in the end. Also Ragnok was just looking after his wellbeing here.

Then he looked at the second sheet. It had listed various names and their nationality along with what subjects they will teach.

Mr. Mike Langdon (American) – Transfiguration, Arithmancy, Occlumency Legilimency , Dueling, enchanting the objects

Mr. Filip Sondros (Swedish) – Charms, DADA, Runes, Warding, Dueling

Mr. Arthur Kluvait (Dutch) – Potions, Herbology, Magical Creatures, History, basic healing

Axeblade (goblin) – various magical languages, goblin culture and handling of weapons,

Sharpclaw, Axemage and Norgruk (goblin) – His holdings with Gringotts, how to invest them and other aspects of being Pendragon and Peverell Lord

Nagnok and Rootclaw (goblin) – Basic cures breaking and Warding

Ms. Elin Darby (squib) – Muggle Science (Physics and Chemistry) and Muggle studies

Dr. Jason Thorpe (squib) – Medical science and Muggle Finance

Dr. Ian McKay (Squib) – Computers and Architecture

Mr. Alastor Moody (English) – Battle strategies and combat dueling

It was indeed a well thought out list. It covered almost all major subjects. If he needed to go higher, he would have to put those efforts himself. He was ready for that though. But this training in next 5 days should give him a firm base from which he could build his own knowledge empire. This was very good for the beginning. Ragnok had certainly used his time well, Harry thought. He had only few questions about it. So he asked, "I have no problem with this arrangement Ragnok. I only have few concerns and question. First is what are this Occlumency and Legilimency?"

Ragnok sighed. He should have known that Harry would not have any idea about half of the things written on his ability test results. So he decided that he would explain all those in one go. "Harry, Occlumency and Legilimency are form of mind magic which would help you in arranging your memories and protect your mind from other attackers. The Dark Lord was one of the best known in these arts. Metamorphous is an ability by which you can change your appearance. This is similar to that of Polyjuice potion but lot more permanent. You can change your appearance at will and any magical detection devices cannot identify your original identity. Shadow mage is ability to use shadows. We are not very sure about this either, but this is due to the fact that last time a known shadow mage traveled this earth was 5 centuries back. I could not find many books on this particular ability. I think you will have to learn this skill on your own. Finally let's discuss your elemental ability. Because of this you will be able to use spell related to those elements with ease. Your teachers would cover this aspect in more detail when you will undergo the training. I think you will have to develop metamorphous and shadow mage abilities on your own. All other would be covered in your training. Also as you can see I have added some muggle studies and their other subjects in your training. It is my belief that as a true King you will need to know those things. If you don't want, then we can remove them without any issue."

When Ragnok finished, Harry immediately shook his head and replied, "Oh no. please don't do it. I will like to study them myself. I had thought about completing similar course once I finished the Hogwarts, so this is more than convenient. I think this arrangement is good enough to get me started. I would assume that few of the teachers would join me late or leave early depending upon their subject of teaching."

Ragnok smiled and replied, "Yes, that facility has been added. As you can see, your account managers would take active part in your education and that could happen only if they have some time to finish their current work here. So we added this facility to time chamber. Now is there any other thing that you want to discuss or we can close this meeting. You need to stay at healer wing for tonight according healer Surgiknife."

Harry immediately said, "Oh, there is one more issue I want to discuss with you. I normally leave with my muggle relatives as you are now aware of. This is in part due to some complicated blood wards that Dumbledore had setup on that particular house. According to Prof. Dumbledore, as long as I stay in that house, I would be safe from any form of external threat. The problem is, my relatives don't like magic and now that I am an emancipated, I would be able to use magic there. This would create unnecessary trouble. Also I have money now so I don't want to go back there. Add to the fact that while coming here, I had not informed my relatives directly – I had only kept a note there – I am sure that if I go back to that place, it would be an unpleasant experience for me. What I want as a solution to this problem is to buy a 3 BHK flat here in London which I can use to stay. We can ward it as best as one can. Then inform my relatives that I won't be staying with them ever. If possible I want to keep it quiet for few weeks. Informing Prof. Dumbledore right now, may not be a good option. I will deal with him when I go back to Hogwarts. Is there a solution to this problem from your end, Director?"

Ragnok took a moment before replying, "Yes, we can achieve most of those things. Axemage you will look into buying a new house for Harry in central London area. It should have a hidden floo access that will be directly connected to my office. Also get our best warders and make sure that this new home has best wards placed on it. Harry I would suggest we go for buying the entire floor in a building or individual home. Choice is yours."

Harry thought about it and then decided to wait for five more days. He asked Ragnok, "How much time will it take to complete this transaction and warding?"

Ragnok answered, "It should not take more than 3-4 days to complete all the requirements."

Harry then replied back, "In that case Ragnok, I would like Axemage to identify the properties for me. I would like to buy the house only after inspecting one. Also money is not the issue, although I would appreciate if you can identify the top floors in the buildings. This will help us in placing the correct wards more effectively."

Ragnok accepted this and continued his instructions further, "Sharpclaw, I want you to contact Harrys relatives and inform them that there is change of his living arrangement. Take a warder with you and modify the wards on the property so that any mails addressed to Harry should come to your office. Then Harry can reply them accordingly. Take a curse breaker with you as well and ask him to map all the wards placed on that particular house. Threaten these muggles and force them not to disclose where Harry is. Create a suitable alibi such as muggle summer camp. Register Harrys name to one such camp, ask some muggle to attend in his name. Do this first and then you can tell Harry's muggle family that he would be attending this camp and will not stay with them for rest of the summer. They must inform anybody who asks them where Harry is by giving this summer camp address. Also make sure that they understand that they have sent Harry to summer camp to reduce the tension with Dudley as he is on diet and observing Harry eating more food than Dudley creates major trouble. Also they have done this voluntarily. I think that should take care of our immediate concern. Is there anything you want to add Harry?"

Harry was very happy to with the story that Ragnok had created. So he happily agreed to this and gave his permission to Sharpclaw to go ahead with the plan. He raised one last point though, "With all that is done, I have few more things to share with you. First I want account managers to make full audit of Potter fortune. We need to check if something is missing. I am not sure but it seems that the amount in this account is far too small. Second thing that I want Gringotts to do on priority is audit of all properties and leased properties for Peverell and Pendragon account. I have a feeling that we may get some interesting information from it. The third thing that I want is audit of Vault number 2 and 5. Any books, journals present there – especially journals of one Ignotus Peverell and Peverell Family Grimoire are important – keep all of them in a trunk. When you will come to teach me, bring this trunk with you."

Once all goblins agreed to this, Harry continued, "Now second point. I would continue to do my business from Peverell Vault for now. Both Pendragon and Potter are far too popular and important names. People will take immediate notice of it. I want an additional account which can work in similar fashion to that of my trust vault but is in reality a Peverell Account. For now, keep Potter main account and my trust vault as it is. Also while auditing the Potter account, see if you can go deeper. It may very well be that my father has supported the fight against Voldemort and that has reduced the account money. If there are any transactions taken placed between the periods of 1st November 1981 to 1st August 1991, try to find where the money went. I think in that period nobody was in charge of accounts – not even trust vault – so they would be fraudulent transactions. One more thing is if you do find such case; do not do anything without my consultation."

Once more Harry waited for goblins to agree. This time though all of them were taking their own time before agreeing to his plan. After they agreed, Harry continued, "Now to main point. When Thestral touched my scar 2 days back, it was because my soul was tainted. That means there was another part-soul present inside my body. While the old family magic was invoked to remove the tainted soul, I received few explanations about certain things in my life. With that help I have to forge my future. Now the first thing; the war that we will face against Voldemort would be very exhausting. When he will get his body back – and he has already started the necessary process for this trust me – he will be more powerful than before. With current Ministry of Magic in such disarray and riddled with his supporters; we can expect great resistance from them while fighting the dark lord. However I now have a fair idea about the reason why he was not killed on 31st Oct 1981. This was because he had created number of Horcruxes to bind himself to mortal world. As you can guess, I was also one, but now it has been removed. One of the reason why I was magically mediocre was that part of magic was always fighting this soul part of Voldemort. Now that it is removed I can finally achieve my true potential."

Observing that all 4 goblins were in pensive mode, Harry continued, "I don't know many things about this right now. I have many memories, but they are protected for now. I think when I will finish my Occlumency training, we may get much more information on this." At this everybody brightened. They have to wait at most another week before they will have more definite information to end the dark lord.

Harry decided to wait to disclose the information about still alive people. He thought that once he had accurate idea about how Voldemort had achieved this; he would be able to explain that particular information in better way. Now he had one final matter to resolve. "Director, you said that I am Lord Pendragon and Peverell now. How do I know if I have any other titles?" Harry asked.

Harrys question brought Ragnok in the world of living once more. He had been thinking furiously about the disclosure that Harry Potter had made. If what young Potter had said was true then it would be very difficult next few years for goblin nation. He desperately hoped that after training Harry Potter will have some plan to go ahead and help goblin nation along in the future. For now though he sighed and answered the young lord's question, "Hmm, I don't think you have any other titles just yet Harry. But there is no harm in checking. All you have to do is summon your primary – in your case it is Pendragon and even though you are born Potter, Pendragon Family outranks every other Family in Briton – lord ring and then try to summon all house rings that are available to you. If there are any other house rings which were missing or you are entitled to new houses due to fulfillment of their specified condition they should appear before you. All other house rings that you already possess should also appear on your finger individually."

Harry accepted the answer and then summoned his Pendragon Family Ring. After that he closed his eyes and tried to appeal all remaining house rings to him. He had a feeling that either Gryffindor or Slytherin house rings would respond to him. So he waited till he felt that his finger now carried two more rings. Then suddenly he heard gasps from his goblin companions. Opening his eyes, he saw three more rings in front of him. This was shock to him. Sharpclaw though recognized Potter Lord Ring immediately and told Harry that the extreme right sided ring in front of him was Potter Lord Ring. Harry very carefully collected this and then asked Sharpclaw to put it back in a box and then give it back to him.

When he looked at two remaining rings, he identified one as Gryffindor ring due to presence of small figure of mighty Lion on it. As he put forward his hand to collect this ring, abruptly he felt a presence on his head. He could literally fill magic around him. This was because quite a few family totems had made their appearance beside him.

First and foremost was Royal Phoenix, which took its customary position on top of his head. Then there was Potter Griffin flying in front of him before settling down on nearby desk and attentively watching him. Harry also noticed that the griffin gave small bow to the Phoenix once it settled. The third totem was Thestral from the Peverell Family. It also looked at the Phoenix and gave small bow before continuing his inspection of 3rd ring for which Harry was unsure about its Family. Then there was a lion – meaning this belonged to the Gryffindor Family. And finally there was a serpent. It was very similar to that of basilisk but its eyes were not yellow and Harry was internally very glad for that. That indicated the last ring belonging to Slytherin House. Harry again noticed that both the serpent and Lion paid their respects to the Phoenix.

It was the Phoenix trill which explained things to Harry who was by then bewildered due to presence of the various Family totems. According to the Royal Phoenix, "Do not touch either of those rings my lord. They must be brought back in the order." With this said, the phoenix flew in the air and then there was a pure magical energy flowed towards both Lord rings. After about five minutes or so the Phoenix flew back to Harry head and said, "Now you can take those rings. There were old protections on them which would not have allowed you to wear those rings when you are wearing the Kings Ring."

Before Harry could react on this, suddenly the Thestral sniffed the second ring. The moment his snout touched the ring, the snake gave a painful hiss. Then as suddenly as this happened the Thestral was back and after a little bow to Royal Phoenix he disappeared. Once again the Phoenix spoke via trill, "Take care young lord. You must restore the order. We will protect you as and when we can but you must fight your own battles soon." With this said, both Phoenix and griffin disappeared.

The remaining two totems looked at him before the serpent spoke in hiss, "[_Hello my Lord. I am the Slytherin Family guardian and the lion is of Gryffindor family. At this moment he cannot communicate with you directly but we sense that you have the ability to do so. When you will learn the necessary language, he will speak with you in more details. Since our families disappeared before the Kings throne was formed, we were not included and bounded in family magic as most other families are. Now though our place has finally been shaped. When you will formally take the family ring to yourself, you will have to undergo the necessary knowledge transfer about our families in your brain directly. From then on, you could get all the information you want about our families with the help of that knowledge. It will be a painful process but it won't take long time. We will always try to keep you safe and take care.]_" With that said, both serpent and lion also disappeared.

**[Author Note: Look, I don't know how to write in Serpents Language (Parseltongue). So whatever the content I have written in above passage in "[]" are actually spoken in serpents language. At least assume it like that.** **]**

Harry once again looked at the goblins, only to find all of them on floor and slightly bowing. Recalling their previous behavior he gently asked all of them to take the seats. It was Ragnok, who recovered first and spoke, "You are truly wonderful and gifted wizard Harry. I don't know what happened here but I am thankful that I could see the Pendragon Phoenix once more in my life."

Harry just laughed and said, "Welcome to my world Lord Ragnok. Strange things happen around me all the time. Hmmm, it is interesting that you could not understand what was happening. It seems that the Phoenix could communicate with me any time but can block all others as and when he deems it needed. As to what happened let's see. First the Royal Phoenix bonded Gryffindor and Slytherin Houses to the throne. This was necessary because these were older houses than the throne and if I were to touch those rings, my magic would have been in conflict with their house magic. Then the serpent explained the same thing to me while giving me information associated with these rings. As far as the behavior of Thestral is concerned, I believe we got lucky and this is another Horcrux down. Ragnok, can we check if this particular ring was used as an artifact for Horcrux?"

Ragnok nodded towards Harry and asked Norgruk to take the Slytherin ring and perform the require checks. While they waited for Norgruk to return, Ragnok said, "So in addition to Pendragon, Peverell and Potter you are also Lord Gryffindor and Slytherin. I don't know what you have done to earn those titles Harry."

Harry looked pensive for a moment before answering the question, "Even I don't know that Lord Ragnok. But these rings contain all the information about these families. Once the knowledge transfer happens, I would be able to answer your that particular question. I am not planning to take these titles now. I think when the Occlumency training will finish; I will be in a better position to manage the information properly."

Ragnok nodded his consent and broached another subject for discussion. "Harry, do you know the other hidden meaning of these titles? In ideal world, you will have to take Five wives now – one for each line. It is possible to marry only once and combine all families under one name but I would advise against it. This is because now your primary house is Pendragon and if you combine all other houses then Potter line will have to die. So my suggestion would be to take five wives and continue all the lines independently. Now that you are a Lord, you can remove the protections placed on the rings or can modify them. I think similar to the old houses; this information must have transferred to you directly when you were judged worthy of the title."

Now Harry was truly gob smacked. He had to marry five times. It seemed that unexpected and bizarre things happening to him would continue for rest of his life. He had not even thought about getting himself one girlfriend and now he had to think about five wives. Oh god, how he would be able to convince anybody that he had to marry five times?

He could imagine Hermione's reaction to this. He would be glad to be alive after the lecture that she would give him. She would feel scandalized by mere thought of existence of such relationship. In some way, living in muggle world, Harry himself felt that this won't be a healthy relationship. There would always be a question of him favoring one wife over others. But he decided that he should cross the bridge when he has to. He was not even 14 years old yet. And marriage was not high priority item on his to-do list. Hell, it was not even an item on the list, forget priority. First and foremost he needed to learn and prepare for the war. Then, if he survives the war he could think about his marriages. And then there were his family as well, who could help him. At least he hoped they would help him.

But to get better understanding of his situation, he asked Ragnok, "Director, how often in wizarding world do you see one lord having more than one family to rule over?"

Ragnok thought for a moment before answering the question. He said, "Harry, what you have to understand is that such relationship – one man with multiple wives – was not that uncommon in wizarding world and even today it exists. Few centuries back, there were many such relationships and everybody accepted this, similar to muggle world. However, over the time even though muggle world shifted to monogamy relationship of a husband and a wife, in wizarding world things were different. Here polygamy relationship exists to a day in the pureblood circles but they remain hidden most of the time. With the increase of muggleborns in the wizarding community, who strongly oppose such relationships, pureblood lords became stealthier in hiding their polygamy relationships. Now a day they disclose one marriage to the world but in private they are in polygamy relationship. The wife may support her husband or not, it does not matter as the law of house remains in its lord's hand – that is her husband. There are various types of relationships that you will learn over next few days and they will help you to understand the concept more. As to your original question, after every war, there have been occurrences of one man carrying more than one title. This is mainly due to heavy death toll that war brings. I expect quite a few young lords to get more than one title in this decade as this generation will come to age after the war against Voldemort and that war had cost us quite a few families like McKinnon, Prewett etc."

Harry mulled over the information that Ragnok had given him. After some time, he accepted that he does not know the wizarding world. When his teachers would teach him few things, he would ask them some questions and get the require answers. Harry finally said, "I have one final request Director. Please see to it that both Gryffindor and Slytherin rings are placed in an individual box. I will collect those boxes from you just before entering the chamber."

Ragnok immediately asked Axemage to collect the Gryffindor ring and do the required. When all three account managers were gone – as Sharpclaw also left to collect Potter Lord Ring box and Norgruk had already left to verify the presence of Horcrux in Slytherin ring – Harry decided to call the day end.

Just when he thought that all the necessary things are done, he had an epiphany. Even though he had large amount of money, he may need much more if he ever thought of bringing the real life image of Camelot back. Plus there was no harm in learning more, was there? So he asked Ragnok, "Director, can you search of some material about Alchemy? From what I have learned so far, it is an extension to both transfiguration and runes. I would like to see if I can crack it?"

Ragnok for his part was stunned. He took a moment before answering back as it was necessary for him to come back to living world, he answered, "Of course I can do that Harry. What I will do is this. I will collect some basic to advance alchemy books for you. I will also try to get some journals which may help you to learn it in easier way. Then I will send those with Axemage when he will come to teach you about your holdings."

Harry readily accepted this and was very happy with the outcome. Alchemy had held fascination to him ever since first year when he learned about it through Nicolas Flamel and Philosopher stone. He thought he could do it. But as always, he needed to wait before finishing any task. He then asked Ragnok to arrange for his absence from 4 Private Drive as early as possible. Accepting it Ragnok reminded him that he was required to wait in the medical wing for night according to healers order. Harry smiled at this ruefully and allowed himself to go back to his room in healer wing led by the assistant goblin that Ragnok had provided.

Once he was settled in the room, his healer Surgiknife returned and performed few more tests. After that she told him, he would get the dinner whenever he wants, but he should not stay awake late and that he should take as much rest as possible. All he had to do was press the rune placed on bedside table. After taking few more measurements she left him.

Since it was almost a dinner time and having missed in-between food, Harry decided that he would take early dinner. So he pressed the rune indicated by Surgiknife and immediately a goblin helper came in. Harry asked him to bring a simple traditional dinner plate. Once the dinner was there he thanked the goblin and ate the dinner quietly mulling about all the information he had exchanged with director Ragnok. Once he finished the dinner, he decided to end his day early and followed advice given by healer Surgiknife. He slept thinking about the next adventure he had decided to take on with help of goblins. He hoped that Ragnok would take care of problem of Dursley for this summer. He was also sure that with strong family magic guarding him, he was in safe hands for first time in many years. Whenever the family totems make their appearance, the feeling they invoked is similar to one always associate with Hogwarts – feeling of true Home. With all those thoughts jumbling in his head, Harry slowly drifted in the world of Morpheus.

**To Be Continued.**

**Author Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing in advance. This chapter is not proof corrected. I do not have a beta writer to such things so you may find few mistakes. Also please note that English is not my First Language. So any mistakes in the chapter, I take total responsibility for it and am very sorry for the same.**

**On the side note, I have almost finished the next chapter, and it is not this long (around 8-10K words). Expect the next chapter by Christmas vacation. As I said earlier, I have fixed the plot and will continue to follow it. The next two chapters would cover Harrys training. The story will start taking shape in next chapter but it would be slow. According to plot, I think chapter 5 onwards we will see the real interesting parts. Thanks once more and bye for now.**

**This chapter was published on 21****st**** December 2014. **

**-** **GeniusReader**


	3. Chapter 3 - And the Magic is

**Harry Potter: The Flag Bearer of the Throne**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter world. This is a work of fiction.

**Reference: Harrys Teachers**

Mr. Mike Langdon (American) – Transfiguration, Arithmancy, Occlumency Legilimency , Dueling, enchanting the objects

Mr. Filip Sondros (Swedish) – Charms, DADA, Runes, Warding, Dueling

Mr. Arthur Kluvait (Dutch) – Potions, Herbology, Magical Creatures, History, basic healing

Axeblade (goblin) – various magical languages, goblin culture and handling of weapons,

Sharpclaw, Axemage and Norgruk (goblin) – His holdings with Gringotts, how to invest them and other aspects of being Pendragon and Peverell Lord

Nagnok and Rootclaw (goblin) – Basic cures breaking and Warding

Ms. Elin Darby (squib) – Muggle Science (Physics and Chemistry) and Muggle studies

Dr. Jason Thorpe (squib) – Medical science and Muggle Finance

Dr. Ian McKay (Squib) – Computers and Architecture

Mr. Alastor Moody (English) – Battle strategies and combat dueling

**Chapter 3 – Learning the Magic**

_Last Time_

_Harry (He) slept thinking about the next adventure he had decided to take on with help of goblins. He hoped that Ragnok would take care of problem of Dursley for this summer. He was also sure that with strong family magic guarding him, he was in safe hands for first time in many years. Whenever the family totems make their appearance, the feeling they invoked is similar to one always associate with Hogwarts – feeling of true Home. With all those thoughts jumbling in his head, Harry slowly drifted in the world of Morpheus._

_-TFB-_

5th July 1994, 7.00 AM, Office of Director Ragnok, Gringotts Bank, Diagon Ally

Next day Harry woke up early in the morning. A simple tempus charm told him it was 5.30 in the morning. He finished his morning rituals quickly and had already finished a small breakfast Sharpclaw came to his room at 6.15 AM. Since Harry was all set, they immediately went for director's office. Once inside Ragnok briefed him a general about procedure they would follow before entering the time chamber. His teachers would come there by 6.35 and then they would take an unbreakable oath with Harry. He also explained that by taking the oath, Harry would be the only person who would have control over knowledge of this particular adventure. Ragnok also told him that he himself would bind in unbreakable oath with Harry to protect this knowledge. Ragnok then explained him the process that Harry had to follow so that he could take the correct oath from his teachers. He also assured Harry that he had taken every precaution as far as wordings of the oath is concerned which would make sure that their enemy could not exploit the small missing gap in the detail.

Ragnok also informed him about their other adventures. Sharpclaw had managed to successfully ward of the threat of Dursley. As far as Dursley were concerned, Harry would be attending the summer football camp of Arsenal. He would be away for most of the summer and would only return sometime in mid-August. They had also managed to add the mail redirection ward to Sharpclaw's office. Ragnok told him that he would personally transfer all the mails written to Harry regularly until Harry gives further instruction to them.

Ragnok also updated Harry that Slytherin ring was most likely a former Horcrux according to Gringotts curse breakers. Goblins had tested it for all kinds of curses, traces of old magic and found two very powerful traces. According to the curse breakers present in Gringotts, one trace was of Dark Protection Magic. This was likely the curse that dark lord would have planted on the ring to protect the Horcrux, Ragnok had theorized and Harry agreed to that sentiment. Harry also learned that the second trace was most likely of Horcrux itself. Since there was not a single Horcrux that goblins had dealt in past two centuries, it was difficult to assert the fact about Horcrux trace; but Gringotts was certain that it was definitely a Horcrux trace. They were also not sure about the originator of Horcrux, but personally Ragnok was quite positive that it was from Lord Voldemort. He assured Harry that ring was perfectly safe now and Harry could use it anytime he wanted to use it.

Another point that Ragnok mentioned to Harry was, report given by Surgiknife. According to her, Harry's magic had gone under a transformation and now it was more powerful than before. This might cause him some issue while using the current wand according to Ragnok. But according to Ragnok, Harry would be able to use this wand by pouring more magic. If and when he would receive the new wand, he would have to reduce the magical power while performing most of the spell. Harry was further assured by Ragnok that he would be learning to control the magical pouring in a spell as it was part of his mind magic training and dueling. Ragnok also suggested that Harry should think about purchasing a new wand only after completing his education in time chamber. This would then ensure that Harry's magic is well stabilized.

While both Harry and Ragnok were going over these topics in latters' office, Sharpclaw and Norgruk were assigned to bring all the teachers in director's office. Once all the professors were assembled in Sharpclaw's office, both goblins directed them to director's office. There was obvious curiosity and awe to many of them when they saw the obviously and casually displayed wealth of goblin nation. Thankfully everybody kept quiet about it till they reached the Director's Office. When they reached the director's office, Ragnok welcomed each and everybody and introduced Harry to them. After introductions were done, he again briefed them about the tasks they were supposed to do.

About teaching Harry he commented, "Make sure you push him to limit. He wants to learn the right way then show him that it is not an easy way. Even if he is paying you, give him every reason to hate you by expecting and extracting best out of him. He himself has admitted that he had been lazy while learning in Hogwarts. So make sure that you remove it thoroughly. Next time when he thinks about word 'Lazy', I want him to remember this training and shudder. He is in your capable hands from now on. And although all of you can come out at any point in this training, he cannot come out from time chamber unless I am there to authorize it personally. So give me every reason to stay away from him for next 5 days." He then flashed the famous goblin smile to Harry and Harry gulped audibly. He knew at that moment, his teachers would push him to his limits. But in his mind this was good news. He had always performed well when he was under pressure. This would be another such occasion and a stage to prove himself to his new teachers.

After answering few questions about whole contract business to some of the teachers, Ragnok asked them and Harry to complete magical oath part. Ragnok himself initiated the process by giving his oath first. This was followed by three account managers working for Harry giving similar oath to him. After that, all the wizards and witches in the room took careful look at the wording of oath before giving it to Harry.

Once that was done Ragnok lead them to time chamber. Here Nagnok was waiting for him with his team. Here Nagnok gave the unbreakable oath to Harry along with every member of his team. After that Nagnok and Ragnok went over the time chamber functionality with Prof. Mike Langdon. Finally Harry entered the time chamber at 7.15 AM with his teachers. It was his first but giant step to become the true king of magical Briton.

-TFB-

Inside Time Chamber, 1st Day

Inside the chamber, they entered in a beautiful 3 story house. Harry immediately went to explore the house along with most of his teachers. It was very spacious building and had a large ground in front of him. In the backyard there was a greenhouse containing most of the standard magical plants. Inside the house, the ground floor contained mainly kitchen and living room along with very spacious hall. The general meeting room which had a long table along with very comfortable chairs was also there on the ground floor. There was also a basement, but it was actually a heavily warded dueling area explained Prof. Landon to Harry. It was currently empty room apart from few stone crystals kept at fixed positions. Harry assumed that they would add more material as and when they would require it for dueling. The library and most of the small classrooms were occupying the 1st floor. Each classroom was slightly different than other and Harry assumed that his various teachers must have provided specification of these beforehand. The 2nd floor had a potions lab. It also contained another large room which Harry thought could be used for some spell practice. The Physics and Chemistry lab were also present on second floor along with Biology lab. The 3rd and final floor was reserved for bedding. Harry's room was at the far corner and he was surprised to see that there was trunk full of many pairs of cloths suitable for Harry. He assumed that Ragnok must have arranged them as he had not brought any cloths with him. Nonetheless he was very happy with this surprise from Ragnok. He made a mental note to thank Ragnok for this gift. He was also very pleased to find his invisibility cloak and Firebolt being present there. Beside Harry, there were few rooms reserved for goblins. On the other side of central staircase the remaining teachers' quarters were present. Once the tour was completed, Prof. Langdon told everyone to assemble in the meeting room.

Once everybody was present in the meeting room, Prof. Langdon took control of it. "Ok everyone, I am Mike Langdon and you all can call me Mike. Let's do this job in a right way. As far as my contract is concerned, I am going to be here along with Harry till very end. As I am the senior most faculties among you, Ragnok has asked me to take the role of mediator between us and goblins. So for a time being, I will act as mediator between you all and Harry and the goblins. Now let us all chalk out the plan about how to teach Harry and what to teach him. Whenever you have any concern about plan, please raise it immediately so we all can resolve it and come to agreement suited for all of us. Any questions till now?"

When everybody declined, he continued with referring a sheet he had taken from Ragnok, "According to this sheet given to me, Prof. Kluvait here is a healer."

Here Prof. Kluvait raised his hand and said, "Ah, the name is Arthur, Prof. Kluvait is very formal for me. I am not a trained healer but I was working with Aurror department and learned few basic healing techniques for battle field emergencies."

Mike acknowledged that and continued, "That is absolutely OK Arthur. All Harry need is introduction to healing arts and you are more than qualified for the job. Although I want you to check Harry every month so we all can access him better. According to Ragnok, his magic had undergone some massive change very recently. Harry, do you want to add something here?"

Harry took a look at everybody and slowly said, "I am not exactly sure what has happened yet. But couple of day's back my curse scar was removed in the Gringotts healer wing, which caused some reaction. According to Ragnok this was a precise reason why my magic has changed. You all know about my scar right? Now look, it is healing. This has never happened."

Once Harry finished, he showed them now almost invisible scar on his forehead. Arthur then asked him to come to his side and started casting various diagnostic spells. Once he was done, he took a paper out from his pocket and wrote few things on it. Then he announced the results to waiting crowed. "According to my tests, Harry is very powerful and hyper active young lad. But his magic is yet to stabilize. That should be our main priority. Unless his magic is stable, we would any wand classes would be useless for him. His body also shows traces of malnourishment. There are also few old injuries he had in the past but nothing that I cannot heal. I will make few potions which will help him in healing these old wounds and his malnourishment."

After some more idle chatter and discussion on how they should teach Harry – most of which was going over his head – they decided on the final plan. As Harry was reading it in his bedroom, he thought it was not that bad. He had liked the teachers around him for most part. They were all open and friendly to him. They had asked him various questions and sometimes asked to demonstrate a spell or two. This had helped them in preparing his plan so that it would suite him best. The plan itself was very interesting, Harry mused.

General Schedule for Harry Potter

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday – Magic Classes

Tuesday and Friday – Muggle Classes and Other Extracurricular Activities (Such as learning Wizarding culture, Muggle Culture, goblin culture etc.)

Saturday – Dueling and other extra activities (like Animagus, Apparition, Shadow Travelling, Elemental, Flying etc.)

Every Muggle Evening after dinner – Occlumency and Legilimency

Term break of 2 weeks after every 3 months Term,

Summer break of 6 weeks,

Christmas/new year of 2 weeks

A day off, every time a new teacher comes or one of existing ones leaves

According to Mike, they would have to start with Occlumency immediately and in all likelihood it would continue for initial few months. This particular branch involved lot of meditation and it should help Harry stabilize his magic according to Harry. Till that time, all wand classes would mostly cover the theory and history part of different spells. Practical part would start only after stabilization of his magic. Arthur had explained Harry that in reality it should take long time to achieve the complete stabilization of his core. However they could stat the wand classes after he learned enough control over his own magic. This was something interesting for Harry. He had not known that his magic was so wild. Arthur had assured him that once he starts meditation, it should help him a lot and he would get finer control of his magic thereafter. Arthur had also said that this meditation period would be worth because once he starts using magic; he would feel positive change in his casting power. Mike had also assured him that physically he was still weak and they want him in peak condition to use magic. Thus he had to get up at 6.00 in the morning and run around the house for 20 laps. They all thought it would be highly helpful.

His classes were supposed to start at 8.00 AM in the morning and they would end at 5.00 in the evening. Since they were covering Astronomy via charts, it was part of magical courses. Breakfast was available from 7 to 8 in the morning, lunch from 12 to 2 in the afternoon and dinner from 6 to 8 in the evening. Everybody had to adjust their schedule accordingly. Harry had permission to fly every day as long as one of the teachers was there to monitor him. With all this agreed, the term was going to start from next day and Harry was looking forward to it eagerly.

-TFB-

7 months later, Inside Time Chamber

Harry who was lying on his bed, had already finished two terms inside the chamber and tomorrow his next term was about to begin. In the first term, he was not permitted to use wand and hence all wand classes were theory only classes. To his great surprise so were the classes for Herbology and Potions. He was spending all classes covered by Mike in meditation along with his mandatory Occlumency and Legilimency training hours. On top of this he was also practicing the meditation before going to sleep. This extensive meditation had helped him immensely. Now he could feel his magic. He could see how wild his magical core was when his emotions were running high, or how peaceful the core looked when he was in meditation and his mind was not stressed. This exercise had produced an added fruit – the one he had not revealed to anybody yet. He could feel other magical beings in his surroundings. He had started to realize this particular effect very recently and was looking forward to meditation exercises. Harry was certain that if he developed this particular gift to highest level possible then he would get unquestionable high ground in battle environments as he would no longer had to depend upon his other physical senses such as eyes or ears to detect the enemy.

Apart from the sessions with Mike, Prof. Filip had discussed lot of theory as far as charms and runes were concerned. This has helped Harry in building his foundation for charms. He also realized that runes were quite easy for him and that it had a flair for the subject. He was gutted when he remembered that he allowed Ron to dictate the terms and took the fraud subject called Divination.

Arthur on the other hand had mostly spent 1st term about discussing various ingredients used in potions and their connections to Herbology. This had given Harry a basic idea why many of his potions were gone wrong in the past. All in all he was very happy at the outcome at the end of 1st term.

His muggle classes on the other hand had started rigorously. In the first term they had covered the primary school stuff. Although Harry was well aware about this stuff, he had been forced to not perform by Dursley family. So he had requested his teachers, Elin, Jason and Ian to start from the scratch. They all had agreed and had put Harry through a rapid fire primary school course in first term.

In the second term, the study was mostly of the subjects taught by Elin and Jason. They were a couple and had found it easy to come together here to teach Harry. They had stated the secondary school courses – not all, but most important – and this was the portion Harry was not aware due to his education in Hogwarts. However, once he got back in the groove, he had picked up the speed and was performing to outstanding level according Elin. This has pleased Harry to no end as first time in his educational years; he was performing to his best of abilities.

He had also grown physically due to morning exercises and potion course given to him by Arthur. He had now started to run 30 lapses instead of 20 in the morning. This along with his Quidditch workouts had helped developing his body. As far as dueling was concerned, it was still at the very basic stage of dodging. Mike and Filip had given him stern warning and his wand was taken by Mike on 1st day of dueling when he complained about no spell casting. Now both the dueling experts were casting simple stinging hexes at Harry and he had to avoid them. According to Filip, this exercise would continue till he could demonstrate his skill by evading continuous 100 hexes. After two tiring terms, Harry had barely reached the count of 40. It was frustrating to Harry but as he was picking up his ability of magic sensor, he had observed that he could last much longer in the dueling arena. He hoped that further exercise would help him to reach the targeted goal much faster than everybody expected.

As far as Magical subjects were concerned, in second term Mike had continued with his meditation training, while Filip had started on basic charms. The first time he had cast the levitation charm, he was surprised by the sheer power that had flowed through his body. After that most of the term was passed in regulating the power used for casting. Filip had decided to stop working on runes for now. He was afraid that till Harry had a finer control of his magic, they should not start on Runes, as it might cause few unwanted accidents. Arthur on the other hand had started with Potions and Herbology. He had also introduced Harry to proper history of wizarding world. According to Arthur, Harry had a very good understanding of potion ingredients and thus was a prodigy at Potions. This was also due to the fact that Harry could very easily identify the potion currents. Due to his this particular ability – a manifestation of his sensor magic – Harry had a knack of identifying simpler methods to get the potion done. Arthur had used this to teach Harry more about potions and about accidents that could happen if proper care is not taken. He had gone as far as to ask Harry repeat many simple potions with different methods. Sometimes, Arthur would disturb a potion knowingly and then ask Harry to solve the mystery and get the potion back to acceptable level. This had helped Harry immensely and increased his understanding of how different potion ingredients work. Their discussions on such topics also helped his cause in Herbology.

All in all Harry Potter thought, he had learned more in past seven months than his last three years in Hogwarts – especially in Potions and History classes. Yes they had not started the magical casting very seriously, but the progress was definitely there. According to Mike, once Harry had better control of his Magic – and he was very close to achieving it – the wand subjects would be a piece of cake for him. Harry seriously hoped that is the case.

But he was not worried as his teachers were very patient and would explain every detail to him when he asked them some questions. Mike was stern but very easy-going person. He reminded Harry of Remus as a teacher. Filip on the other hand was most cheerful of the lot. He always took interest in anything that he was doing while explaining every detail to Harry. Arthur was like is namesake Arthur Weasley and was much more laidback than others. However, he could give Prof. McGonagall run for the money in strictness when it came to lab etiquettes, as far as practical potions were concern. His all teachers had allowed Harry to develop the skill of using the library well rather than depend only on books – like Hermione was. Arthur and Filip had taught him to think independently. Yes the books still provided him the basic information about spell and all, but it was his mind and magic that would eventually apply them. Thus thinking differently and quickly was very important part of his learning. As he drifted in to realm of Morpheus, he was looking forward to start the new term.

-TFB-

**End of 4 Years, Inside the Time Chamber**

As Harry sat in the meeting room while waiting of Ragnok and everybody else to join him in meeting room, he was very happy. This was the best summer vacation he had. For last 4 years, he had put some serious efforts into his studies and it had paid off rather handsomely – at least that is what he liked to think. He would know soon enough, he consoled himself.

Right on the time, his teachers and Ragnok entered the room. He waved to Ragnok; glad to see the old goblin again. Ragnok smiled and said, "It may be a long time for you Harry, but for me I saw you all only yesterday." Harry smiled sheepishly at that and was teased by Jason immediately.

As per the custom, Mike took a charge of the meeting and one by one each teacher submitted the progress report of Harry in their subjects.

Jason and Elin confirmed that he had reached the high school graduation level in Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology (although it was not his favorite and was a bit weaker in it) and Muggle Finances. They assured that they would continue his education in muggle studies to best of their abilities for next few years. Also Ian would start taking very active part in Harrys training hence forth as he would start teaching the architecture and basic of computers.

For Arthur, Harry's first report was medical one. According to him, most of old wounds which were curable were cured. His physical condition was very good and he had reached a physical maturity in synchronization with his magic – that means whenever Harry's magical power would increase, it would be done in the harmony of his physical power. This magical and physical power synchronization would ensure that there won't come a time where he would not be able to cast a strong spell because of lack of physical power. This was a rare gift to him and was mostly due to long and tedious efforts taken by both Harry and Mike. The long time that Mike forced Harry to spend in meditation had done wonders to his body and magic.

As far as the main subjects were concern, Harry was at OWL level in Potions, Herbology, Magical Creatures and History of Magic classes. Although he would have to practice some practical stuff as far as subject of Magical Creatures was concern. But this was in time chamber and it had few limitations that they needed accept. Arthur said that he would continue working with Harry on these subjects for few more years and gradually introduce the healing at the later part of his education.

Filip was next and he had some very positive news for everybody. When Harry thought that DADA was his best subjects, he was lying. It was Runes first and then DADA. According to Filip, Harry was already at NEWT level in both the classes. The rune maps that he had generated were exemplary. He also had a unique gift of finding the problem runes in very complex rune structure. Filip was gushing over his students' forays in runes and declared that he would be the best curse breaker and warder in the world. Everybody was surprised to hear that comment. According to Filip Harry was also OWL level competent in Charms and the only reason he had not progressed further was because Filip himself was doing lot of variations in simple charms with Harry in his classes. The results were outstanding success.

Finally it was Mikes turn and according to him Harry had adequate knowledge of Transfiguration and Arithmancy up to OWL level. They had covered this portion in record time as most of first five terms were spent on meditation purpose. Mike admitted that Occlumency training was going at much slower pace but Harry was able to detect the external probe by now and had already placed quite a few shields around his mind. Mike was going to start the animagus transformation training for Harry from next term. As far as dueling was concern, they were still on dodging part but would soon start the formal dueling training as Harry had reached the count of 95 just few days back.

Ragnok was quite pleased with progress made by Harry. Once all other things were covered, he asked Harry to wait behind so they could talk about few other things. Once only the two were left, Ragnok started the discussion, "I am very pleased Harry with your progress. This is well beyond my expectation. You have done great job. When I saw you initially – in office of Sharpclaw – I was not convinced about you. You lacked any kind of proper knowledge and magically looked mediocre at best then. But now look at you. You have done wonderfully well in each and every subject."

Harry blushed at the praise and replied, "It was not easy. But I knew that already. You have to put efforts if you want to achieve something. The teachers you have found are also great, especially Mike. He allowed me all the time to do proper mediation. There were moments when nothing was working for me and I was really frustrated. In those cases he cajoled me, rapped me and sometimes forced me to do right thing. But finally it paid off. Now I feel much more clam. And I can sense the magic."

Ragnok was happy to hear that. He asked about how Harry was feeling about this foray in magical realm in general. To this Harry replied, "Normally I am very comfortable to the schedule we have decided on 1st day. I think for 2 or 3 more years we should continue it. After that some new subjects would start."

Once Ragnok acknowledged him, he restarted the discussion saying, "There is one more thing that I would like to talk to you. It is about an interesting ability I think I have; though I have not spoken about it to anybody here. Since I can feel my magic very easily now – after extensive meditation, mind you – I can also sense magic from others. As my Occlumency shields have progressed, I can easily identify a magical being in my close vicinity. The magic to each one is unique and I can sense that. I initially thought of it as nothing, but when I met you today I am finding this more useful. Before you all came to room, I could sense all others and then there was one extra – a new entity. It was your magic because I can sense it even now. I am sure it is the other persons magic because, each one is unique. Like Mike and Filip have a very strong and bursting core while Arthur has a strong and clam one. I could even sense a very faint magical pulse coming from the Muggle Studies Profs that we have here – mostly because of their squib heritage. Actually this is the ability that helps me in Runes. I can feel them easily and the problem runes will always show themselves as danger zone. What I do is I put a very small undetectable magic to the rune structure via my fingers and then sense it. If there is a problem there then it will show up immediately. The magic around such rune is very different – it gives aura of destruction. If no such problem is present, then the entire rune structure would glow and give happy aura. Have you heard about such ability before?"

Ragnok thought for a long moment before replying negatively. "Alas I haven't heard of such technique Harry. But as I said before you are a wonderfully talented wizard. If you have this kind of sensory ability, keep it and protect it. As for developing it, I would suggest, the wards and charms set on this house would be a great start. Also try to use it as your second breath. No efforts from your side while using it. This should help you in finding your enemies early. Magic is used everywhere in our world Harry. Next time when I would be here, I would bring few more complexly warded materials with me – both good and bad. They would help you to develop this ability further."

When Harry agreed to this, Ragnok continued, "Now I would also suggest that you wait till your animagus transformation, before starting on your elemental skills. I have done some more research on your elemental abilities and most of the spells that you would need are NEWT level. This portion would be covered in next few years and you might complete your animagus training by then. Also I have a gut feeling that your animagus form is related to your elemental abilities. As far as shadow travelling is concern, I would again suggest that you wait till your apparition study. From what I have learned, it is similar. So that should help you."

Harry agreed readily to these suggestions and thanked Ragnok. Ragnok for his part updated Harry on their other missions. Harry has still not received any mails. Hedwig – his faithful owl – was now at Gringotts and had made home in the director's office. Ragnok was very amused by the said owl as it was very intelligent animal according to Director. Since Harry had joined a football camp, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley had forced Dudley to join one as well. Unfortunately for them, nobody accepted him due to his high weight issues. Now he was on strict diet and would most likely join boxing camp soon. The Potter Account Audit was finished and there was grave news for him. Ragnok assured him that they could recover any money that had been misplaced/theft. But he also said that he would let Sharpclaw and company explain the whole thing to him when they would come to start teaching Harry. He was expecting them to finish the audit process by next day morning in real world. After thanking Ragnok once more for all the efforts he was taking, they parted the company with Harry looking forward to new adventures in magical domain.

-TFB-

End of 7 Years, Inside Time Chamber

They were once more gathered in the meeting hall. This was a first time when some of them were going to leave. Goodbyes were just around the corner. Few more would join them soon but the feeling of a room was clear. It was heavy with unshed tears and unsaid words. As usual, Mike started the meeting after taking permission from Ragnok and Elin gave her report first.

According to Ian, Elin and Jason, Harry had finished his training in various muggle subjects till university level. They have covered all the things they could. The only blemish being extensive use of computers for practical purposes. Although, Ian had promised Harry that if he was still interested in learning it, he should contact Ian and they could do few hand-on sessions. Harry certainly was not at the master level in any of the subjects or held great amount of interest in most of them but he was fairly competent in all the muggle subjects.

This knowledge helped Harry in his magical lessons as well. The two subjects that attracted him most were Architecture and mathematics. He was certain that his prowess in Arithmancy were due to deep understanding of Mathematics. He had thought that once he finishes his Hogwarts education, he would join the university to get the mathematics degree.

Architecture on other hand was interesting him for complete different reasons. He knew that the old Potter Manor – which was somewhere in Wales – was destroyed by Voldemort while killing his grandparents. So he wanted to build a home which in few generations down the line would become the ancestral Potter Home. This was the reason he studied architecture class in very detail.

The other muggle class that held his interest was Medical Science. It was similar to healing and there were quite a few quick solutions to small wounds which were useful in case your wand is lost or broken. He was also interested in experimenting with both Muggle and Magical Healing methods to achieve the best results. But again this was a project well suited for later part of Harry's life.

After this Arthur went next. On Harry's medical part he had nothing to report other than the fact that Harry was progressing well. The only difference was that Harry seems to have gain even more control of his magic. The control and amount of Magical Reserves that Harry possessed amazed Arthur who free admitted he had never seen something like this before.

As far as his magical subjects are concerned, he had clear and definite understanding up to the NEWT level for subjects History of Magic, Herbology and Magical Creatures. He had finished the OWL level work of Astronomy. His Potions though were another story. He had almost completed his mastery in the subject. The only part remaining was about carcass rendering from magical beast. But in pure potions he was a prodigy. Harry himself had been left wondering why so many of his potions in Hogwarts were such drastic failures. According to Harry those failures were most likely due to sabotage from his Slytherin counterparts. He had an unbelievable skill of mixing correct ingredients in the potions. Due to this, Harry was able to modify many standard potion methods for better and brewed the potions in much easier and faster ways.

Hearing this news, Elin agreed with Arthur and said she had also observed similar things in his Chemistry practical. Harry for his part knew this was due to the magic sensing part that he was developing steadily. He glanced at Ragnok who knew not to press the matter there. So he deftly turned to Filip expecting his report and sidestepping the old issue.

Filip had also very positive review about Harry. According to him if Harry sat for his Mastery exam in Charms, DADA and Runes then he would ace it. He was so ahead in all three subjects, it was phenomenal. His control over magic was excellent and this with the extra practice he had put over the past few years, his stamina for casting was exceptionally high. He had started basic warding with Harry and was very sure that he would be a great warder.

As per the usual norm, Mike was the last person to give his report. For his subjects, they had again concentrated heavily on mediation as it helped in both Occlumency and Animagus transformation. Mike said, "Harry can easily get Outstanding in Transfiguration and Arithmancy NEWTs." His greater understanding of Mathematics and Logic was definitely helping Harry in Arithmancy.

As far as Harry's dueling skills were concern, he could now dodge the spells for 360 straight attempts. Filip and Mike had finished instructing him on the different dueling techniques. From next term, they would start the practical dueling with him. Each week he would duel with both of them and Arthur would also join the duels to provide the different enemy methods.

Mike also promised to start the enchantment in next term as Harry had not completed his mastery level in Arithmancy yet. As far as Occlumency was concerned, Harry had finally reached the stage where he was fully protected according to Mike. Arthur concur the sentiment as he was also invited by mike in last few terms to check Harry's defenses. He was definitely a neutral to this as was suspected by goblins. Mike joked that he would feel sorry for anybody who would try to peek in Harry's mind unannounced. The protections Harry had developed were outstanding and of highest level. Once he got hang of his magic and understanding of what is the actual meaning of protections, it was just a walk in park for Harry. He had also shown a great deal of imagination while creating the defenses. He had made sure that no two defenses were of same elements and he had freely used thunderstorm and lightening in his mind protection. According to Mike at this level, Legilimency would not pose a real problem and Harry would be able to complete it in 1 year timeframe.

Last but not the least was report on Harry's animagus training. This was the area which was unknown to everybody else but harry and Mike. They had maintained a firm silence on this training course from the beginning. Thus it was the report which generated most interest. Unlike many other wizards or witches, Harry had 3 animal forms available to him with one of them being magical animal. One was Thunderbird, second was an Eagle Owl and third was a Mongoose. This was because of extensive meditation Harry had undergone with Mike while stabilizing the magic. According to Mike, almost every wizard who had completed the animagus transformation has had more than one animal form available to them. But each of the inner animals would reveal themselves to their Human if and only if the said human has appropriate physical and magical condition. That means if your inner animal thinks that your physical or magical fitness could not sustain the transformation then it would not show itself. Mike had also explained to Harry that every magical being has at least one inner animal but most of the time these animals remain dormant in your body. If you doubt yourselves and your capacities then it was unlikely that your animal would eve show itself to you. Harry had thought that Hermione might fall in this particular category. Also the use of potion to find the animal form would eliminates the possibility of finding other forms available to user. This was because the potion would force the inner animals to choose the most suited animal for the user among themselves and that form becomes the dominant form afterwards. This was a major reason why Mike had insisted on finding the inner animals via Meditation method which was more tedious than the potion based method. Mike had also revealed that he himself had two forms – a Labrador and a Fox. Harry thought that they suited his personality perfectly.

Harry had started working on his only magical form; Thunderbird – on Harry insistence – and he had completed the first complete transformation last week. The future plan was to master the various magical capabilities of thunderbird before starting the process of transformation of other two animals available to him. Harry was yet to master even simple task of flying with thunderbird transformation and Mike had suggested that it might help Harry if he finished the same process with Eagle Owl form first.

At that moment Harry in the Thunderbird form. Everyone was clearly surprised not expecting sudden transformation and just stared at him. He was very happy to see the reactions. Filip stated that magical animagus had not been observed since the time of Merlin. Arthur just stared at the bird with childlike awe. He was partly justified as Thunderbird was not seen for past 2 centuries. This was gold for him as he could study the magical and mystical Thunderbird from very close distance. Harry's three muggle study instructors – Elin, Jason and Ian – also looked at him in wonder. After about 5 minutes, Harry changed back explaining, "That is all I can do in one go. It is very taxing for some reason. I don't know much about it and I can't fly yet but I hope to complete those parts in next term."

After discussing Harrys progress in magical and muggle culture, Ragnok asked others to leave so he could have the private chat with Harry alone. Once everybody was gone, he started, "That is very impressive progress Harry. Now that you have completed Occlumency I am eager to learn few information pieces about Lord Voldemort that you may have."

Harry replied, "Ah, director, I will have to disappoint you there. I have not really started going over those memories yet. Although now all I need is some time off. Most likely I will do this in next summer break. I have also not taken up the Gryffindor and Slytherin rings yet for same reason. But I have some good news for you. My magic sensing ability is growing and working extremely well. I have not yet reached the stage to continue using it without any conscious efforts but now I can sense a spell coming at me even if I don't know the spell previously. As far as I have tried the only wards that I cannot understand clearly are magical contracts or oaths. But in a way it makes lot of sense. If I can understand them, then I can also find a counter to them. If this happens then it eliminates the purpose of such contract/oath."

Ragnok was little disappointed to not have any more information about Lord Voldemort but was happy to learn the progress of Harry's Magical Sensor. He then handed over a small trunk to Harry while explaining, "It is a multi-compartment trunk Harry. In this trunk, you will find that there are numbers of objects stored in each of the compartment. Each object has few enchantments placed on them. Some of them are curse objects as well. The amount and severity of curses placed on an object increases as you go in downward compartment direction. In this trunk, the last compartment contains various magical objects with highly dangerous curses placed on them. I have asked Rootclaw to monitor you when you are working on these items. Promise me that you will follow these orders to the word. Some of the curses placed on these objects can kill you in case something goes wrong. So I want you to take adequate precaution while developing your magic sensor. Also do not touch any object placed inside the trunk without exclusive permission from Rootclaw. What you can do here is that you can take out one object. Then study it with your sensors and try to find the solution to lift the enchantment or curse placed on this object. This would help you in both curse breaking and magical sensor. Am I clear here?"

Harry quickly agreed and replied, "That is all right director. I can do that. I only have one question though, does Rootclaw know about my ability?"

Ragnok nodded at his answer before giving answer to Harry's question, "No, he does not. I have told him specifically that you have developed a very different approach to do such job and that I want to see how much further you can go. He won't challenge or question my authority. So don't worry about that."

Once Harry was assured, Ragnok continued after giving him one more trunk, "This trunk contains various books on alchemy Harry. There are also few journals and memories. I have taken a liberty and procure a good quality pensive for you. It is also present there. You can ask anybody here about how to use pensive. They will help you. With pensive you can actually view the past memories and learn from them. The person who gave me this told me to inform you that you should take correct journal with you while viewing the memory. When I observed the material in my office today, all journals and memories are tagged. I could not relate the tagging, but knowing the creators eccentricities I am sure he would have done something like this to secure the ancient knowledge of alchemy. According to person who gave this material only the worthy magical person could unlock these protections – he himself was unable to use them. I have acquired the material on your name the man was hopeful that you might be that worthy heir to knowledge of alchemy. The only thing that I cannot do here is disclosing the identities of the people from whom I have acquired this material."

Harry was overjoyed by hearing this news. It seemed that his stars were finally changing for better. He profusely thanked Ragnok who waved it off and then continued, "Now, we come to main phase of your training. Till now you have learned all the basic stuff that you would have done in Hogwarts. After this your training would be more combat-oriented. It would be more professional oriented as well. I have formed a team of best curse breakers and warders that we have here in Gringotts under Rootclaw. They will teach you all about their job. Learn it and use it with your other abilities. From now on your three account managers would also join your training. I want you to practice your elemental abilities with them. When you will master the Thunderbird, it will help you with your major elementals."

Harry carefully noted the serious tone in this discussion. He knew that Ragnok had invested heavily in him and was helping him better than anyone else. He also understood the stakes were high in war and that he must ensure that they all came out on top at the end. He solemnly nodded to Ragnok and promised to do well in remaining training as well. After some more less serious discussion, the pair went up to meet everyone in living room.

Here Harry gave a warm hug to all three muggle instructors – Elin, Jason and Ian. He was very sad to see them leave, but understood that henceforth his training must be all magical. They have done their job properly and he would always remember them for that. Past 7 years were blast according to him but now it was time to move forward. After another round of warm goodbye, they left with Ragnok.

Harry and company waited for few minutes before the goblins and their team entered the house. The curse-breaking team was of 7 wizards, who all were looking like they have fought huge battles in their life if lost limbs were any indication. Their magic was also strong although it had a different tinge than his teachers. Harry liked them all as far as their first impressions were concern, though he was more eager to start the work with his account managers. He had plans and for them to execute perfectly, he needed correct information – the information which was brought by them. His goblin culture classes would also begin from now on. For temporary purpose, Mike suggested that they keep the previous schedule as it is with goblin teachers taking classes on Tuesday and Friday. Everybody agreed to this plan and they continued with Harry's education.

-TFB-

End of Year 10, In the Time Chamber

Looking back at past 3 years, Harry was mighty pleased with what he had achieved. He was waiting in the meeting room for his usual one-to-one discussion with Ragnok. Their common report meeting with other teachers was already done and Harry was very pleased to say that he had finished mastery level education in Charms, Transfiguration, DADA, Runes, Potions and Arithmancy. This was a great achievement in everybody's eyes and his application level and his determination to succeed were lauded by all. He had also finished mastering his two main animagus forms – Thunderbird and Eagle Owl – completely. He could fly well in both forms and could also use most of the magical powers of Thunderbird such as lightening and storms control. This had presented opportunity to Arthur who with the permission from Harry had studied the Thunderbird for past three years. Arthur was now planning to write a book describing the Thunderbird in the future. Right now though the man in question - Harry himself – was musing about creating havoc on the enemy forces. He thought with Thunderbird creating lot of storm and lightning, this would be a perfect distraction for enemy while other team members from his force could take their positions to trap the enemy. His musings were cut short when he detected the magical presence coming his way – Ragnok.

Harry was already on his feet, greeting Ragnok fluently in the Gobbledegook. Ragnok was surprised for a moment before realizing that Harry had a gift of magical speaker. Once he was out of his shock, he greeted Harry back and spoke with him in great delight. Once they were settled, Harry started the discussion, "Once more hello to you Director. Sometimes I converse in Gobbledegook with my goblin tutors while explaining some things. This helps in better understanding between two of us and also helps me in learning more about goblins."

Ragnok who nodded his acceptance said, "You are right of course Harry. And it is good to see that you still respect us as your equals. No offence to you but many people of your race treat us like filth even when we handle your gold. That is where all problems begin in a way. Discrimination of any form is the main cause of the conflicts that we constantly find ourselves in. But let's not waste our time on these issues right now. We had more or less covered your educational progress in the common meeting. I am eager to hear about your progress in other areas we have been discussing."

Harry nodded his acceptance and started his report on most private topics between Ragnok and him. "That is alright Director. I will go over them one by one and you can remind me if I have missed something. First is my sensory ability. I think I have full control over it now. It is constantly active and I can easily find if some other magical presence is there beside me. I can for most part pinpoint its location as well. This has its own limitation of course. My estimate is that I can be sure about location of magical presence in 50m radius. The cursed objects you had given me, they were dead useful. I learned a lot about controlling this sensor through them. It also helped me understanding the difference between good spells or enchantments and dark, harmful curses. I asked Rootclaw to enchant a particular object for me to try out certain things. I have removed all the curses from all the objects that you had given me till now. As I said they helped a lot for me to develop this ability in right direction and thank you very much for providing these objects. I think I can also determine the minute difference between passive magic and active magic. Also the difference between simple ward and danger curse is also easily identifiable. Rootclaw has the items with the trunk and will give it to you when he returns later in the day. What I am planning to do in next few years is develop an object which would help me in limiting my sensory ability. Now that it is constantly active, I could become overwhelmed if I am in presence of highly ambient magic buildings such as Hogwarts or Gringotts or even Diagon Ally."

Ragnok nodded and was pleased with the result. He had added few items in that trunk on the gut feeling that Harry might be able to remove those curses. These objects were goblin made and goblin nation had lost many lives while re-acquiring them. But for all of their combined efforts, the curses placed on them by many old families were impossible to remove. The goblin nation had lost many top curse breakers before keeping those prized items away. But now Harry had done a great service to the nation. The objects were back where they belonged. This was definitely very good news.

Once Harry saw Ragnok was ready for next piece of information, he started, "Now the more interesting part – the Horcrux hunt. Excluding me, Tom Riddle – true name of Lord Voldemort – had decided to create 6 Horcruxes as a part of his 7 fragment soul theory. When he came to Godric Hallow on the Halloween all those years back, he had already created 5. He was ready to create 6th after my death. Because of this reason, I became a Horcrux. His body was already prepared for Horcrux creation after my death. So when he casted the killing curse on me that night his soul was damaged and a small piece of it was broken from original soul of Voldemort. It attached to my body after searching for any living creature in that vicinity. Since I was the only living thing remaining there I became the unknown and unintended Horcrux of Voldemort. Normally Voldemort would have guided the newly broken soul piece in one of the pre-made objects. This object then would have become the Horcrux."

Harry continued his explanation on Horcruxes, "Now out of 6 known Horcruxes that he had created, 3 are destroyed. I am the obvious one, so is the Slytherin ring. Then there was diary of Tom Riddle. I had destroyed it accidentally in my second year. I will come to that particular incident later. There are three more Horcruxes left but I am not able to pinpoint their safe location. All I know is that he had kept one in Hogwarts, one is in some kind of cave and final was given to Bellatrix for safekeeping. It is likely that this particular Horcrux is there in her vault at Gringotts. Voldemort had a fascination to major magical symbols like Gringotts and Hogwarts. Since we know that he had kept one in Hogwarts it is likely that he might have asked somebody to place one in Gringotts as well. And I know for sure that he had given one to Bellatrix and one to Luscious Malfoy. He had not informed them about exact nature of the objects but had told them that these objects held some great value to Lord Voldemort."

"Now, if we can find one more Horcrux then I think I can use it to sense the remaining two. But it would be tedious job but we could definitely try to pinpoint the locations. Also there is a likely possibility that Lord Voldemort has created one more Horcrux to complete his 7-part soul theory now that he has enough power to do some magic. He was not aware of Horcrux in my head, so from his point of view he had only 5 Horcruxes. But we will see about that later. For now let's concentrate on finding one of the three we surely know he had created. You can check if such object is present in Gringotts right?"

Ragnok, who look mortified at the prospect of keeping such a dark object inside Gringotts, replied back, "I will definitely do that Harry. But we may come to dead end there. Unless we have control or access of her vault, we cannot remove any objects from the vault. This was due to the ancient treaty that we goblins have signed with wizards. But at least we will definitely know if such object is there or not."

Harry who looked little disappointed with this information, shrugged and responded, "In that case I hope Gringotts would still take a look into this matter. If we do find such object we would have to plan an ambush to get it back. But for such plans, we must know that there is a Horcrux present in Gringotts. Also check all the options of how we could control that particular vault – of Bellatrix. Some contract or debt to one of the houses that I have direct claim or may have some indirect claim to it; may be there, which then we can exploit. We may get lucky."

Ragnok nodded his acceptance to this. So Harry continued, "Now about my elemental study. I have finished most of my study of elemental magic. My inner Thunderbird helped me in that. I have sufficient control over them now. I still don't know about exact finer control and details but I feel I have sufficient control over them and my inner Thunderbird agrees. That was a great suggestion by the way. Thank you so much for it. Mastering the elemental ability is very nice change and I can use those spells without wands as long as I am in direct contact with air or water. I will of course continue to work on the minor elementals after I finish my third animagus form."

This was also a big progress made by Harry, Ragnok thought fondly. The decision he had made few days back in Sharpclaw's office has already started to pay off handsomely it seemed. He asked Harry to continue his tale.

Harry was little tense here. Now was a very delicate subject that he was planning to discuss with Ragnok. He started, "There is one more discovery I made from memories of Voldemort that I received. It seems that his original plan was to control the wizarding Briton and model it to his views. But he also recognized that many of his supporters were thugs. Some of them were excellent fighters but majority were thugs. Thus in later part of his quest to conquer the land, he developed a very cunning plan. He realized that if he wanted to eliminate the resistance completely then he was also eliminating some top class talent. So he devised a spell which was similar to killing curse but acted in a different way. This curse would put the victim in permanent sleep and then transport them in a dimensional vault that Lord Voldemort had created. His plan was that once he conquers the Briton, use these captured victims as his slaves and fighters. He also wanted to use some of the victims in various rituals which would help Lord Voldemort to steal their magic. Fortunately he was not very sure about the exact ritual magic and method although his research was definitely going on in that direction. With his original way, he wanted these captured people to become powerful symbols of his dominance and control over the British islands. To my count around 24 people we believed dead are not actually dead. They are in permanent sleeping condition reversible by Lord Voldemort himself. And this count may be more as the memories are not very clear."

This was big shock for Ragnok, who closed his eyes thinking about the information he had just heard. He let the information sink in his body for few minutes before he opened the eyes back. Harry had patiently waited till all this time. When Ragnok nodded for him to continue, Harry continued the tale. "From what I could gather, my parents were also not killed. Many MacKinnon's' were also part of his plans. The Prewitt twins are also there in permanent sleep. So you may get the idea. What I would suggest is; if Gringotts have a way to check the life force of a vault holder then you should use it to verify the status of first war victims. Also remember that Lord Voldemort was not averse of taking witches along with wizards. Although I think he had different plans for witches. They were definitely not there in his plan of making an army. But let's continue. The good news is we can rescue them all. I do have a basic idea of how this entire process works from the memories that I have from Voldemort and with the help of somebody like Dumbledore; we can rescue these unfortunate people. The problem right now I see is that we will have to wait for this. Doing this kind of mission, while making sure that Voldemort remains unaware is very difficult. Accessing the dimensional vault without the permission of owner will generate huge magical energy. This may attract the ministry or some other unwanted attention. We will also need to plan this whole operation carefully. It may also require huge ambient magical energy. So you can see the problem. Planning this mission with Dumbledore will remain my focus for next year along with finding the Horcrux hidden in Hogwarts. "

Ragnok was pleased to hear this news. He assured Harry that Gringotts do have a method to check if a particular wizard is alive or not. This is normally used when the goblins have to disclose the contents of a will. If there were any dispute to the death of concern wizard then goblins could use that method to establish if said wizard is dead or not. Unfortunately for them when entire family line is killed in a war, the wills disputes were few and far. Because of this such travesty was not detected beforehand. Ragnok knew he would definitely check each and every wizard and witch that died during the war at hands of Voldemort. At least those he knew and those who had a Gringotts account. For all other victims they would remain dependent on Harry solely. If they could save all those victims, it would bode well for their side.

Once this was done, Harry started the new subject – Alchemy. He assured Ragnok that the material that he had acquired was very good and in next few years Harry would be able to do lot of high level stuff in alchemy such as making Philosophers' Stone. His ultimate aim was to create "Mithril" using alchemy – though Harry did not state this in open; even to Ragnok. With the new lab that Axemage was setting up for him and the new notes that his alchemy teacher had provided Harry (the intended beneficiary was the one who could decipher the Gringotts vault number through the initial material provided so far – 711 vault) via his vault, Harry was sure that he would be able to achieve his goals before end of his time in time chamber.

Next item on their agenda was Houses that Harry was controlling. Harry told Ragnok that he had taken the control both Gryffindor and Slytherin house. The first condition for both those houses was for their intended Lord to be a magical adult. Incidentally Harry became Lord Gryffindor and Lord Slytherin because of the events transpired in his 2nd year.

For Gryffindor House Clan – as they were clan and concept of house only came forth in the Camelot Era – he had to face the unimaginable and deadly foe (a Basilisk and/or Memory Riddle) with nothing but true courage (Harry faced the Basilisk and memory Riddle with next to nothing magical knowledge). Additionally this courage was to be shown for the noble cause (saving a friends sister – Ginny Weasley). When he killed the basilisk using Gryffindor's sword, Harry became the intended Lord Gryffindor as the conditions for the Clan Head of Gryffindor were fulfilled adequately.

The Slytherin House was slightly more complex matter. To understand the actual conditions required to became Lord Slytherin, one had to understand the history of Salazar Slytherin first. Harry did exactly that to Ragnok by explaining him the necessary history of Salazar Slytherin.

As many had thought what would be a necessary condition for this title, Harry needed to be a true Parselmouth. However this was a lot more common gift than many assumed. Many wizarding families could trace their bloodline back to Slytherin house and thus most of them had the gift of Parseltongue. Only select few in magical Briton had the courage to show their talent of Parseltongue to the outside world (like Gaunt's) because of the discrimination of Parselmouth speakers in magical Briton. Harry knew this because of the knowledge that had been passed to him and his own research done in tracing the history of various magical families back to Camelot to determine their efforts in helping the British Magical Family. The reason he became Lord Slytherin though was because of his Gryffindor bravery Harry had mused.

Since Salazar had lost his parents at very early age to witch hunting muggles; he was an orphan who was helped by Godric Gryffindor. They had become very good friends and shared a dream of teaching and rescuing the magical community around the world. When Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff joined their forces, the four founders could form the Hogwarts School of which they had dreamed for long time of their life.

Most of the enhancements to school were done by Salazar. This was mainly because of his fear of muggles finding their secret hiding place. The initial days of school were very difficult. It was long time before Rowena Ravenclaw came up with the Muggle Repealing Charm. Before the charm was placed however, there were many attacks on the school and its occupants. In those ensuring battles with muggles; Salazar and Godric used to fight at the direct offensive line. These fights left Salazar very paranoid in his later stages of life. He had lost his family to muggles and as the battles at Hogwarts became more and more fearsome, he was very worried that the school may not survived. This obsession with security of school caused the birth of Chamber of Secrets and its beast – The Basilisk. The chamber of secrets was built by Salazar as a last protection mechanism for Hogwarts. Salazar knew that only a true Parselmouth could repel the Basilisk gaze and command its allegiance. So to ensure the safety of school in an event when the utmost security function must be operated, – the Basilisk – Salazar devised a cunning plan true to his nature.

He was not a married man by then and knew that no true heir for Slytherin family could be found in through Salazar. The Slytherin Clan would be continued through his distant cousin who was a squib. The plan of Salazar involved various stages. In the first stage he created a hidden chamber inside Chamber of Secrets where he kept his most useful notes, journals and other material with time preserving charms placed on them. At the second stage he performed a ritual by which he transferred important part of his knowledge to few selected items – his ring, locket and dagger. With the help of this knowledge one could access the hidden tomes and true magical knowledge of Slytherin Clan from Chamber of Secrets. He made sure that whoever touches these objects in the foreseeable future (according Salazar the enchantments would only fail in 2 to 3 centuries time) would get the Parseltongue ability if they were a magical being. Then he had decided to donate these objects to few selected clans so that the knowledge would always remain there in the open.

However this did not solve the problem of finding magical heir to Slytherin line. To do this Salazar enchanted his ring to always find the true heir. But to become a worthy heir of Slytherin, one had to have certain skills and needed to prove himself to the Slytherin family magic with few acts of heroism.

The act of heroism that Salazar Slytherin deemed worthy for his true heir was saving the Hogwarts from an internal enemy. For Salazar the Hogwarts was his one and only home as he was the orphan from very young age. Thus he wanted nothing but to protect the Hogwarts at all costs. He had correctly expected that in the future there would come a time when internal fights between students may cause the security concerns for the Hogwarts castle. He had already taken care of the external security problem as far as muggles were concern. There was enough warding done on the castle grounds which would prevent the enemy from entering the Hogwarts and doing some great damage. After placing muggle repealing ward on the entire Hogsmeade valley, muggles were unknown about this particular dwelling. As far as the magical elements who would oppose this educational system were concerned, Salazar was sure that his expertly placed wards would hold strong against them at any time in the future. Also in case of emergency the fury of basilisk could always be unleashed on them. He had made sure that knowledge to control his pet snake was out there in the magical world. He hoped that the efforts he had put into security of castle would made sure that it would be neigh impossible for any external enemy of Hogwarts to gain strong hold inside the castle.

However, when a rotten apple from within the school would cause problem to safety and existence of Hogwarts, he had no practical solution against it. The only viable option he could think about in such case was that the culprit was found out early by the headmaster or some other teachers. But this was not a best case scenario for paranoid man such as Salazar Slytherin. He wanted to make sure that in case the very existence of Hogwarts was challenged then his true magical heir would come forward. This would ensure that Hogwarts would continue to exist by removing the internal threat. In worst case where Hogwarts was fallen to enemy, his heir would have enough knowledge through which he could reclaim the Hogwarts. This was the original plan. However, to provide such safety mechanism to castle as large as Hogwarts was always going to be difficult even for the extraordinary brilliant minds of founders.

The cunning and dedicated mind of Salazar Slytherin however found a solution to this particular problem by developing a ritual. This ritual required the sacrifice of magical human (Salazar himself was ready for this sacrifice) but if completed successfully then it would give the ultimate sentient awareness to Hogwarts castle. It would be like Salazar's own spirit guarding the castle. This would ensure that Hogwarts was always protected from any internal threat. This would also make sure that Hogwarts castle would always recognize the current and true headmaster and follow his orders. If the headmaster himself was internal enemy that castle recognized then castle could go against him to achieve its survival. This awareness would also grant the requisite help to the true Slytherin heir so he could claim back the Hogwarts back from the enemy.

Thus he decided that the magical being who shows enough courage to fight the internal fight and would be triumphant over enemy of Hogwarts (of course the internal one) would finally become an heir of Slytherin on his magical maturity. The Slytherin ring would then able to find the Heir irrespective of its then location.

To achieve this supreme goal, Salazar wanted to perform this ritual in his later years. Over this very ritual he fought with his mentor and best friend Godric and other two witches in his life – Rowena and Helga. The main argument against the ritual was the requirement of sacrifice. All the founders accepted that the internal threat could occur but were against Salazar performing the ritual as they did not want to lose their friend. Rowena even argued that they all could put the brains together to find a different solution but Salazar pointed out that any form of Passive magic won't help the cause of Hogwarts in the future. They might able to avoid few incidents with the clever enchantments or wards they might create but only a true magical awareness would be needed to make sure that Hogwarts always remain secure from both internal and external forces.

So after the long and heated fight with Godric over the usefulness of this ritual, Salazar left the castle and immediately went back to Chamber of Secrets via the secret tunnel he had left in the Forbidden Forest. There for next 3 months he prepared meticulously for the ritual. Finally, on the Halloween that year he performed the ritual to grant the Hogwarts castle ultimate magical awareness. These magical senses of Salazar also made sure to fight many internal Hogwarts battles on its own and always protected the innocent students. They were also able to judge the capacity of each student about the potential to become next Slytherin Heir. Thus by sacrificing himself, Salazar Slytherin had essentially tied the Slytherin magic to Hogwarts castle and made sure that his own magic would judge the true heir of Slytherin.

Thus when Harry bravely fought against the Basilisk and spirit of Tom Riddle who threatened to destroy the very soul of Hogwarts and won, the lingering spirit of Salazar Slytherin finally detected the worthy heir. And when Harry became emancipated he also inherited the title of Lord Slytherin.

When Ragnok heard the complete history of both Slytherin and Gryffindor houses, he was enthralled by it and understood that Harry was judged worthy by some very powerful Magic throughout his stay in magical world. This was extremely rare knowledge for Ragnok and he thanked Harry for sharing the same. Harry told him that most of the knowledge that Salazar wanted his heir to have is still hidden inside chamber of secrets and that he would search for it once he went back to Hogwarts.

The final piece of business they had was discussion about Harry's finances. According to the audit performed by goblins, Mrs. Weasley had taken some illegal money from his trust vault. It seems whenever his key was with her, she had taken liberty to remove the money in his name. She had also submitted a Marriage Contract between Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter although goblins had since found out that it was not binding due to lack of correct blood seal. The blood seal was used when the contract is done between head of house and some other party. To make the seal permanent, it must be signed by both parties with blood quill in front of goblin witness. Since she could not get Harry to sign such contract using the needed blood quill, she had produced his blood as the needed proof. Thus the teller goblins at the front booth accepted the contract for further processing. Now that Harry had taken the position a legal heir to House Potter, the entire Potter account was audited and all papers related to this house were cleared. Thus this contract came to surface. Harry also noticed that Mrs. Weasley had submitted the contract just before his introduction to magical world. Also the contract allowed her to use few potions on Harry to make sure that his marriage with Ginny was a successful one. This contract further allowed her the rights to make withdrawals from Potter accounts.

Harry had already directed his account managers not to bother with this. He always wanted to pay Weasley family about the support and home they had provided. This would only help the matters. However, he had added the mental note to go over their behaviors in detail afterwards. When he had done this, he found four major suspects – Ron, Percy, Ginny and Mrs. Weasley. Their behavior towards him was most suspicious.

In case of Mrs. Weasley he remembered the incident in 1st year. Then he was not aware of the location of platform no. 9 and ¾. But he was miraculously saved by Mrs. Weasley who was loudly asking about said platform and talking about muggles; just in front of him. A very convenient way to impress the eleven year old child, Harry thought. He also remembered that most if not all purebloods normally go to Kings Cross station via floo or apparition. All except Weasley family since Harry started the Hogwarts. He also remembered that all Weasley family members were notoriously late goers and they all could barely catch the train for past two years. But this was definitely not the case in his 1st year, he was early (45 minutes to be precise) and Weasley family was also early by almost 30 minutes if they were just there when he finally saw them. There was a likelihood that they were simply waiting there for Harry on the muggle side of platform.

As far as Ron was concern, Harry was not sure where to begin with. He was his first friend, but sticking with him was a costly affair. He had constantly performed well below his capacities so as not to antagonize Ron. Ron's jealousy was legendary and it had already cost Harry number of friends. Harry was also sure that when Ron joined him in his compartment 1st time around, he was doing it purposefully as his reason of not finding any free compartment was non-valid. Harry was sure about it because of the fact that Hermione mentioned when she had told her about her 1st journey to Hogwarts. She had said that while initially she was sitting with few pureblood girls who all ignored her when she started talking about books, she went on to find number of free compartments at the end of train, one of which she occupied with Neville for later part of journey. So Harry's friendship with Ron was in balance.

Although Harry had no direct proof against both Ginny and Percy, he was intrigued by their behavior. While the twins were easy going and always up for the fun, Percy behaved like the ultimate power garner men in authority positions. Harry also thought Percy as Luscious Malfoy without money; a man who would do anything and everything to gain more power. Ginny on the other hand was always shy around him and was definitely in the category of Fan-girl. She liked his fame – one thing he hated above all else. So when he found the marriage contract with her Harry was obviously on red alert about her since then.

Harry had decided to wait and watch space. He knew this year everybody would start moving the pieces and he would judge each individual in their own capacity. Thus if and when Mrs. Weasley – or anybody else for that matter – tries to manipulate him further, he would act very severely. When Harry explained his thinking to Ragnok, he agreed with a course of action that Harry was taking.

The main thing that Harry wanted to discuss with Ragnok about business however was different. In his interaction with other goblins, he had received the knowledge about an Island near south cost which was under goblin rule. It was a large island and huge enough for the project that Harry wanted to undertake. In goblin world this island was known as "The Tailbird".

So he asked Ragnok, "Director Ragnok I have a business proposal for you. This is a business deal between Goblin nation and House Pendragon. I want to purchase the Tailbird Island. What would be the cost of this?"

Ragnok was shocked to hear this. For one, the knowledge of Tailbird Iceland was virtually unknown. It was very safely guarded secret in goblin world. The major reason was – goblins believed that island contained huge amount of gold reserves. This gold would be useful once the other reserves that goblins had were finished or were unusable for some reason. This Iceland was also used by goblin nation as ultimate security exit. In case they were threatened and that they had to leave the Gringotts branch, this Iceland was there gateway. Thus there was very strict security put on this island by goblins. Even the current Ministry of Magic was unaware of its existence. So hearing Harrys request was a literal shock for Ragnok.

After thinking over this for a minute, he replied, "Harry, I don't want to disappoint you, but even if we combine all the wealth you have right now at your disposal, I am afraid the price of island would be much larger than that. I don't know why you want this island but unless we get something that is even more valuable to us, I don't think the goblin nation would allow such sale to undergo – even for you as our King."

Harry was expecting similar answer. Thus he was studying hard in the field of Alchemy. Once he has the "Mithril" the goblins were sure to make this deal happen. So he told Ragnok, "That is ok director. I hope by the time we meet again, I would have enough resources to pull this heist. All I want you to do is preparatory work at your goblin council. Once I am out of this chamber, I would like to conclude the deal as fast as possible since so many of my plans for the next conflict depend upon acquiring such Iceland."

Ragnok reluctantly accepted this answer but warned Harry that unless he could generate some serious resources, it was next to impossible. Harry agreed to this and told him for not to worry about the resources as he was working on that particular problem. After this they discussed some more about financial matters of Pendragon and Peverell vaults. Ragnok also informed Harry that he still had no letter from any of his friends. Finally after some less serious discussion, Ragnok decided to close the meeting and they parted the company for at least 3 more years.

To Be Continued.

**Author Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing in advance. This chapter is not proof corrected. I do not have a beta writer who would kindly do such things so you may find few mistakes. Also please note that English is not my First Language. So for any mistakes in the chapter, I take total responsibility for it and am very sorry for the same.**

**On the side note, this was a filler chapter – much longer than I expected. Here in this chapter, I wanted to make few things clear – like how I perceive the Salazar Slytherin and why Hogwarts responds only to the true headmaster (remember OoTP and Umbridge, anybody). I also covered most of the educational work that Harry had undergone in the time chamber.**

**Next chapter would be more interesting. In next chapter I will introduce Mad-eye Moody to Harry. The battle strategies would be discussed and Harry would complete his stay in time chamber. However, I have not really started writing the next chapter yet. So the update might be late. **

**Thanks once more and bye for now.**

**Also Merry Christmas to all of you and Happy Holidays.**

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**This chapter was published on 25****th**** December 2014. **

**-** **GeniusReader**


	4. Chapter 4 - The Beginning of Battle

**Harry Potter: The Flag Bearer of the Throne**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter world. This is a work of fiction.

**Reference: Harrys Teachers**

Mr. Mike Langdon (American) – Transfiguration, Arithmancy, Occlumency Legilimency , Dueling, enchanting the objects

Mr. Filip Sondros (Swedish) – Charms, DADA, Runes, Warding, Dueling

Mr. Arthur Kluvait (Dutch) – Potions, Herbology, Magical Creatures, History, basic healing

Axeblade (goblin) – various magical languages, goblin culture and handling of weapons,

Sharpclaw, Axemage and Norgruk (goblin) – His holdings with Gringotts, how to invest them and other aspects of being Pendragon and Peverell Lord

Nagnok and Rootclaw (goblin) – Basic cures breaking and Warding

Ms. Elin Darby (squib) – Muggle Science (Physics and Chemistry) and Muggle studies

Dr. Jason Thorpe (squib) – Medical science and Muggle Finance

Dr. Ian McKay (Squib) – Computers and Architecture

Mr. Alastor Moody (English) – Battle strategies and combat dueling

**Reference: Harrys Account Managers**

Sharpclaw, Axemage and Norgruk

Chapter 4 – The Beginning of Battle for Peace

_Last Time_

_Ragnok reluctantly accepted this answer but warned Harry that unless he could generate some serious resources, it was next to impossible. Harry agreed to this and told him for not to worry about the resources as he was working on that particular problem. After this they discussed some more about financial matters of Pendragon and Peverell vaults. Ragnok also informed Harry that he still had no letter from any of his friends. Finally after some less serious discussion, Ragnok decided to close the meeting and they parted the company for at least 3 more years._

_-TFB-_

Beginning of Year 11, Time Chamber

Alastor Moody – more commonly known as Mad-eye Moody – a recently retired Master Aurror from British Ministry of Magic after a long and distinguished service – was very intrigued when he received the invitation of a meeting from Ragnok, the goblin director of Gringotts Bank on 3rd July 1994. In his long life, he was not aware of any other wizard receiving such invitation. As his curiosity was peeked, he decided to attend the meeting for two reasons. One so he could resolve the mystery surrounded to the meeting. Second reason was in the hope that by attending the meeting he would not be offending the goblins as crossing the path of goblins in wrong way was a known recipe of disaster. This was because goblins were in full control of all the transactions of money in wizarding world. They were bankers of magical population.

Thus when he went to meet Ragnok next day, he was not at all surprised by the goblin helper taking him immediately to corridors behind the main hall after checking his identity. He was impressed however by the wealth displayed in the corridors of Gringotts by goblins. There were also all sorts of goblin made weapons on the display and some of which Mad-eye would have loved to have in his own collection. However far more pressing matter for Mad-eye was that he just could not remember the passage they – goblin helper and Mad-eye – had taken to reach the intended office of bank director. His artificial eye was also not performing as he could not see what was going on around him. His goblin helper though smirked at his confusion and told Mad-eye that his forgetfulness and limited eye sight was due to extensive and clever goblin wards placed on the passages. These wards would ensure that no other magical creature could remember the correct inner layout of Gringotts thus securing the building and the major goblin wealth inside it. Mad-eye was impressed with the warding idea and stored the information for future use before preparing himself for meeting of Ragnok – the Gringotts director.

Once he was introduced to the director, Mad-eye was very surprised by the strange request made by goblin director. The director was asking him to teach the boy-who-lived about battlefield dueling. He was further surprised by the facts that it would happen away from eyes of one Albus Dumbledore and it would be inside the time chamber. Since Mad-eye was supposed to spend only 8 hours to teach (which was equivalent to 1 full year according to Ragnok – what a surprise there; ministry time turners were still working at most for 12 hours a day), he decided to join the crusade.

However, he flatly refused to take magical oath about this maneuver and told Ragnok that he would teach Harry Potter only if he was worthy. After some more negotiations with Ragnok, Mad-eye finally agreed that he could take the magical oath if they had good enough reason to do such training behind closed doors. But this would have to wait till end of Harrys training. Ragnok also reluctantly agreed and so they decided that Mad-eye would start his training tentatively on 8th July. However if there was any change in schedule, Ragnok was supposed to inform Mad-eye about it immediately. After this Ragnok and Mad-eye discussed about payment and Ragnok insisted that he could only pay any fee in cash as it would come directly from Harrys vault. However, Mad-eye insisted on adding 2 goblin made weapons in the deal as that would allow him to purchase any weapon he liked from goblins from the money he would receive from Harry. Ragnok very reluctantly agreed to this.

So here he was walking inside the time chamber on 8th July, to take the look at and possibly teach the famous boy-who-lived. Mad-eye had heard all kind of stories about Harry's adventures in Hogwarts from many sources including Albus Dumbledore himself. Albus had confided some of the facts to Mad-eye as he was worried about return of Voldemort. But since Mad-eye was part of Aurror force at that time, he was given bare minimum information by Dumbledore. However he knew that the kid had produced a very strong Petronus which was able to fend off 100 dementors. So this was a perfect opportunity for Mad-eye to test the skills of Harry Potter himself.

When Mad-eye had retired from Aurror corps few months back, he knew that apart from few capable hands like Kingsly Shacklebolt or Gawain Robards, the quality of department was very down. The war against Voldemort had seen to it. They had lost great Aurrors like Frank and Alice Longbottom, Prewett Twins, James Potter, Sirius Black, Alex MacKinnon, Rebeca Brown to name few. Even now Mad-eye was sad to remember the fallen warriors and comrades. He was thus very curious as to why the son of James Potter who had yet to complete 14 years, was being trained for war by goblins in complete secrecy. Also the training that he had been asked to was battle dueling – something that will take the Potter boy close to Battle Mage. The mystery surrounded to Harry Potter had gone up by a bit in Mad-eye's mind. It was also time to meet the boy.

The first impression of the boy-who-lived that Mad-eye received was very positive. He was perfectly developed physically and was completely different from the memories that Mad-eye had seen from Albus. However, the old wizard had seen enough people that he did not judge Harry Potter from the 1st impression. Once inside the meeting room of the House where they all were waiting to greet him, Mad-eye immediately took charge and ordered Potter Boy to vacate the room. He could see that it was not well received order by boy and other occupants but after being told very clearly that for at least next year Harry would have to follow orders given to him by Mad-eye Harry vacated the room; albeit reluctantly.

After that Mad-eye asked remaining teachers about their roles in the whole teaching process of Harry Potter. Slowly Mike told him all about the progress that Harry had made in past 10 years with the occasional help from Filip and Arthur. Frankly speaking Mad-eye was astonished to see the competency of the boy. Harry Potter had achieved more than Mad-eye could have imagined in last few days inside time chamber. Mad-eye realized this with grim face. It also partly explained why he was supposed to teach Battle Dueling to Harry.

Then he grilled the three men about exact teaching methods they had used till now. Once he had all the required information, Mad-eye told them that Harry would have to practice duel with him on 3 days a week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Thursday Mad-eye would teach him about theoretical aspects such as different battle strategies. The remaining two days – Tuesday and Saturday were free for Harry to use as he pleased. With everybody agreeing with this schedule, Mad-eye insisted that all the other teachers should join him in dueling with Harry. That would help him create various different scenarios.

Once they all agreed to this, Mad-eye was given the tour of House by Mike and Fillip when Arthur went to inform Harry about new schedule. Mad-eye then gave him a sample test to examine his knowledge. It was basic introductory test that every Aurror trainee had to sit. Harry was given 1 hour to finish the test and he did pass the test with flying colors much to surprise of Mad-eye. The score was on par with some of the very best Aurrors of Ministry had ever seen like himself or Frank Longbottom or James Potter or Kingsly Shacklebolt. After going through the test answers, Mad-eye was looking forward to teach the new kid very eagerly.

-TFB-

End of Year 11, Time Chamber

Last year was very exhaustive for one Harry Potter. Before this particular year he had thought that he knew all about hard work and difficult apprenticeship. He had cracked the Occlumency against all odds with Mike. He had survived the presence of Horcrux made by Voldemort in his head for 13 long years. He had also survived the Dursleys for 10 years and it was probably the most difficult task in his young life. He had faced basilisk with no major magical training and the only weapon he had while fighting Basilisk was a simple goblin made sword. He had faced hundreds of dementors and he had also faced various challenges given by the Hogwarts professors to save the philosophers stone. But nothing he had done in his short and yet challenging life had prepared him for what he endured in 11th year of Time Chamber. Mad-eye Moody was not just a simple task master but a ruthless one. He would just push you close to exhaustion and then when you think it is finished, he would simply start a new topic with renewed vigor.

First 3 months were used to practice in survival from incoming spells in battle settings, similar to what Mike and Fillip had started with him. This time there was a difference though. Instead of facing just one opponent he was used to in normal dueling practices, he had to face initially two – Mad-eye and Mike or Fillip – and then in later months all 3 instructors simultaneously. Sometimes even Arthur took part in his trainings to make 4 versus 1 scenario. This was a huge challenge to Harry and in the beginning he struggled to cope with the ferocious intensity with which Mad-eye was casting spells. But slowly Harry started using his sensor ability to good use.

Due to his sensor ability he could easily detect the correct positions of his opponents and as Harry became more familiar with the casting speed of his instructors, his own movements became faster. He also started anticipating the spell chains that the senior fighters were using better. This helped him in great deal to remain in the battle field much longer. At the end of second month he was able remain in dueling arena for about one and half minutes regularly. This was achieved without casting any spell from his side while all instructors were casting simultaneously or with some pre-defined strategy among themselves.

But all this was still done on normal dueling circuit. There were no obstacles placed on dueling platform. As Mad-eye explicitly told him, this would not be the case in actual battle filed. There would be many more obstacles that he could use. Thus from the 3rd month onwards, Mad-eye started changing the landscape for mock fights.

Initially he introduced some boulders on plane landscape. This helped Harry in a way that he could block one opponent completely and concentrate on other two – effectively making it 2 versus 1 battle. But it also gave the 3rd person chance to sneak on him undetected and could easily ambush Harry. Harry found out flaws of his plan quite early in hard way and thus Mad-eye spent one whole week revising various dueling techniques with the occasional help from Fillip and Mike. Mad-eye also made sure to discuss what strategies one could use when they were faced with more than one enemy and facing the enemy on unfamiliar terrain. One thing Mad-eye stressed again and again was that you should never show your back to one of the opponents, no matter what you do in the battle. If that happens, you would be sure to end up as a dead. Thus Harry quickly started using more than a single rock to his advantage and increased his live time (the continuous time he was able to dodge the spells successfully).

Next piece to be introduced was uneven terrain. This environment along with the terrain on which steps could be very noisy (dry leaves along with some sticks or small rocks) was very difficult for Harry. As these terrains gave his current locations away very easily his live time was dropped to half a minute. The main problem he faced with uneven terrain was that all his opponents were placed high up while his positions were bottom. Thus he was very easy target for them.

After being satisfied with Harry's performance of dodging spells without using wand, Mad-eye allowed him to use wand while fighting. However the use of wand was limited and restricted in each fight. For initial few weeks, Harry was not allowed to fire back at the instructors. The major reason for such kind of fighting was that Mad-eye wanted Harry to understand and use the terrain better. So in a situation where there were many boulders, Harry used silencing and disillusionment charms to travel between the rocks. He also started using shields more effectively. Clever use of protective and reflective shields and constant movement between the rocks allowed Harry to increase his live time to 3 minutes within 1st month of wand usage.

When the terrain shifted to ones with many objects (rocks, leaves or sticks), Harry started using transfiguration and some elemental abilities to allow the curse interceptions. Here he would make many small objects to form a protective shield around him and then when a curse comes towards him; it would be intercepted by one of the surrounding objects. This technique failed only when he was hit by two simultaneous curses from very close range. The other problem with this technique that Harry found out was that of the maintenance of object based shield. To maintain such objects based shield required complete wand control. Thus he could not actively engage the enemy. All Harry could do was to try to intercept as many spells as possible with the help of objects placed in shield. However this idea again exposed him when numbers of objects placed in the shield were reduced and he once again became an easy target. Even the fast movements that Harry used were not effective once the shield was down and he generally lasted the duel for about 3 minutes.

However he soon found out the solution to this problem by using his other abilities. In this case, he perfected the required spell chain to create and maintain an object based shield with wand-less and elemental magic. Thus it allowed him to form protective shield quickly while keeping his wand free. Then Harry's sensor ability allowed him to detect spells faster allowing him to shield the spells coming from his opponents. All in all, by the end of 4 months, Harry was quite proficient in surviving such fights for up to 7 minutes on average though he was progressing quite rapidly.

For next four months, Mad-eye concentrated about actual battle filed duels. Here he gave up to 2 minutes for preparation of Battle (the time for preparation was different in each duel as Mad-eye insisted that Harry should be ready for any worst case scenario and in most cases he would not get any time of preparation). In this period, they were allowed to use any spells save unforgivable curses. Mike, Mad-eye, Arthur and Fillip pushed Harry to his very limits in this time period. Harry's physical abilities were tested to its very edge in this period. The recovery period between two duels was also reduced to test Harry's endurance. However, as the months progressed, Harry could see that his control over magic has increased, his casting speed reaching new heights. Many small things such as basic shields were so ingrained to him that he started using them wand-lessly. This allowed him to gain some basic protection from minor hexes and curses while still moving continuously. Mad-eye also used various battle grounds environments for fights. They included fights over swamped places, over small lakes or in some cases in-house fights.

They also followed a ritual of sort after all these fights. Here once the mock battle was over, each contestant was given 20 minutes break to regroup himself. After that they all went through the battle again via observer's memory and highlighted positive and negative points about each other. These were the discussions which Harry found most useful as they allowed him to learn various things about battle magic.

Mad-eye also made sure to go over some of the major fighting styles of famous death eaters such as Bellatrix Lestrange or Antonin Dolohov. These lessons helped Harry to create his own dueling style for Battle Dueling. Mad-eye also forced Harry to use various Transfiguration methods in dueling. This was done in an effort to ensure that Harry was not dependent on a most common fighting style which was based on charm work. Use of Transfiguration in battle situations was most useful to distract the opponents as Mad-eye showed on numerous occasions. Introducing the use of transfiguration and conjuration helped Harry to distract at least one opponent. This also helped him in reducing the battle odds from 4 versus 1 to 2 against 1 for sort period. It also allowed Harry to eliminate that opponent from the battle permanently by using conjured animals before taking his chance. Conjuring snakes, instructing them via Parseltongue and using them effectively became one of the most effective and favorite dueling technique of Harry. He also learned to use them effectively – that is conjure animals or transfigure them early but use them to turn the tide of battles when your opponent is not expecting such attack.

After going through some of the Battle scenes where Dumbledore was fighting, Harry started using animated objects in his duels. Mad-eye also encouraged such technique as it allowed Harry to become more and more unpredictable while they were in the mock-battles. By end of 8 months, Mad-eye was confident that Harry can stay on survive if faced with any major death eaters such as Malfoy or Nott. He was also confident that Harry could beat most if not all the middle and low level death eaters. Harry had still long way to go to achieve the levels of Dumbledore or Voldemort but he was on the right track.

The only flaw that Mad-eye could find here was Harry's limited knowledge of Dark Spells. While his teachers had covered most of the basic spells used in dark arts, they were not masters of dark arts. Also they had not truly seen what high ranking Death Eaters were capable of. Thus Harry's knowledge about dark spells was limited. He was very good at dodging and not getting hit from spells, Mad-eye knew that; but what worried him was if and when Harry had to fight someone like Bellatrix or Voldemort who won't mind using very dark spells which Harry's shields' would not hold against. This would cause the inevitable injury to him or in worst case his death.

Thus Mad-eye decided that he would teach Harry about some of the most common Dark Spell that Death Eaters liked to use in the past. But he wanted some more knowledge about the actual reason of Harrys training adventure. So Mad-eye made a pact with Harry that if Harry would provide Mad-eye some major information, Mad-eye in return would teach him all about the dark arts that he knew of. Harry agreed to this after giving some thought. Harry knew that Mad-eye was one of the best fighters for light side in previous war. To be assured of his support when a new war was looming was best thing done according to Harry.

So in next few weeks, Harry told and showed Mad-eye about his various encounters with Voldemort. He also showed him the memory of Peter Pettigrew being alive, Harrys fight with dementors and his encounter with non-guilty Sirius. Harry also told Mad-eye about his vision of meeting between Voldemort and Peter and thus his assumption about impending war in next 2-3 years. Harry also told Mad-eye about how Voldemort had survived the last war – by creating Horcruxes. Harry also informed Mad-eye about the efforts that Harry and Ragnok were putting in finding the Horcruxes as early as possible and destroying them. The only thing Harry did not mention to Mad-eye was about his knowledge of still surviving people in dimension vault created by Voldemort.

Mad-eye was stunned when Harry finished his tale. Now he knew why Ragnok and Harry insisted on taking the oaths about his teaching. It also explained why Ragnok had ensured that all major magic areas were taught to Harry by foreigners and not some of the British people. They would be hard to track down and thus it was a less security risk. He readily gave the required oath to Harry after their session. He also promised Harry that he would help Harry in any way possible to finish the monster that had caused so much of grief to old Aurror personally and professionally.

As promised Mad-eye devoted last 4 months of the year to increase Harrys spell dictionary about Dark Spells and their available counter curses. This allowed Harry to understand the basic principle behind those curses. With Harry's sensory ability and better understanding of the magic, he was able to create few counter curses on some relatively simple dark spells such as blood boiling. Harry made a mental note to go through as many dark spells as possible later and try to find out as many counters as possible to them. But it was a project for later date.

Mad-eye also put Harry under the Imperius Curse and Cruciatus Curse. This was to explain the effects those two curses have on human body. When Harry showed some resistance to Imperius, Mad-eye spent long time to ensure that Harry was successful in his effort to repel the Imperius curse. After a long and grueling session, Harry had mastered the art. They even allowed Mike, Fillip and Arthur to try the same on Harry and were astonished that Harry was able to resist the curse with ease. While Mike and other teachers were not happy about casting an unforgivable curse such as Imperious on Harry, they agreed that it was important that Harry knew how to fight such spells.

Finally at the end of the year 11, Harry knew that he had taken a giant step in his preparatory work for the upcoming fight even if it was a very hard year. Mad-eye had helped him in more than one way. Now he had a very good supporter to fall back on in the future – someone who won't hesitate to do the right thing. He was also a British and knew all about the war effects. He would be proven to be useful ally in the future; Harry was sure about that. The sessions Mad-eye had covered improved Harry's knowledge by leaps and bound. As a general improvement, Harry's spell casting speed had increased by at least ten fold.

Now Harry wanted to spend remaining time in time-chamber to finalize the plan he had outlined for the war of peace. He had to finish his work on animagus transformations, elemental abilities and apparition. He also had to continue his education in the field of alchemy. Plus this year had given him quite a few new ideas about creating some enchanted objects which could be used in real battles. Thus he was looking forward to next phase in his education where they would further the plans to restore the balance of world once more.

-TFB-

9th July, Office of Director Ragnok, Gringotts Bank, London - 5 PM

Harry was sitting in the comfortable chair in director's office after completing his stay in the Time chamber. Currently he was waiting to receive summon from Ragnok to address the elder goblin council about his business proposal of purchasing the Tailbird Island. For the time being though he was mentally going over the tasks he had accomplished in last few years.

After Mad-eye had left, Harry had spent another two years inside the chamber to finish his little projects such as alchemy and animagus transfigurations. Now he had mastered all three animagus forms available to him – the thunderbird, a mongoose and the eagle owl. Harry had always found it quite funny that he had a mongoose animagus form – after all he had to kill the snake aka Lord Voldemort. He had also mastered the skill of apparition. Now all he had to do was go to some ICW country and register for the apparition license.

As far as his elemental abilities were concerned, he had mastered most of them thanks to his animagus forms. Because of his abilities over the storm (water and air) as a thunderbird he had a great control over those two elements. In last two years he had further developed his talent in that area. Also his ability to manipulate earth element had progressed by leaps and bound thanks to Mongoose animagus form.

He still could not do as much work with earth element as he could with Water or Air, but he was quite confident that the skill would help him in survival. Harry was fairly proficient in the area such as small scale dirt explosions or patch shifting or boring small and medium size holes. He was also able to use these abilities in battle duels that he had continued with the help of Mike, Fillip and Arthur although at the reduced pace and intensity – they were sure that no one could match Mad-eye Moody in that area.

The next major project he had finished was enchanting few crystals to limit his sensory ability. This was the only reason he could sit so comfortably in Gringotts office. He had asked his account managers to bring some of the finest crystals present in Pendragon vault. After that he had started experimenting with different rune structures which would help him to limit his magic sensor ability.

Harry started with basic goal of creating magic suppressor – similar to what all Aurrors use. Once he had developed that particular structure, Harry started modifying it. First he attempted to use it for a small area and for every magical object inside it. That means if he placed the magic suppressor in a room where highly active magic is present, then the suppressor should reduce the amount of active magic. Once this was achieved, Harry found out that there was a distinct limit to such objects on how much magic they could suppress. Thus he thought of using the magical energy in different use.

What he did next was creating a basic reflective shield rune structure. The magical energy required for maintaining such shield was taken directly from magic suppressor structure. Thus he had an object which could soak up active magic and then channel it to create the reflective shield around itself. After that Harry concentrated on expanding the shield area so that it could be used effectively by a wizard.

Once he was satisfied with new magic suppressor, Harry wanted to add focus element. Here he wanted to add a rune structure which could be used to define the focus wizard or witch. He decided that the new rune structure should be blood based identifier. That means the only way one could focus it; was by putting a small amount of his or her own blood on this structure. After that it would constantly feed on the person's magic. Here he encountered the problem of amplification of magic. Thus he added the amplification rune structure in between magic sucker and shield creators. This made sure that by taking only small amount magic from user, the required shield could be maintained.

Once this basic structure was ready, Harry modified it further by adding various runes through which he could change the different parameters such as shield strength and area covered. In the end he added a final rune structure through which he could restrict the amount of magic used and runes for stopping the work without removing the crystal.

After painstakingly working for almost 18 months Harry had generated the required arrays of Rune Structures. With this he could maintain the magic sensor ability within a limited distance and also maintain a constant invisible shield around himself while dispatching a very small amount of magic himself. He was able to completely turn off the magic shield simply by turning the object 3 times in clockwise direction. Similarly the he could increase the shield strength in very active magical environment such as Hogwarts by tapping the single rune he had placed on the front side of structure.

Once he was certain that he had done all he wanted to do in this particular project, Harry made 10 such crystals each time reducing the crystal size. His final crystal was small enough that it could be fitted on a ring. Harry had decided to keep at least two such crystals with him all time – one active and other inactive which can be used in case of emergency.

This project had also yielded an unexpected result of producing the required rune structures for basic shield generator. However the main difference here was that it would be based on the magic present in the area instead of seeking magic from the wearer and thus can be used in presence of children who do not have the necessary control of magic.

The other things he had completed in the two year periods were learning and somewhat mastering the abilities associated with his metamorphous and shadow mage abilities. He remembered the incident when after receiving a horrible haircut from Aunt Petunia, Harry had re-grown the hairs overnight. This was a clear indication of metamorphous abilities.

Now that his magic leach of Horcrux gone, he was able to freely use his talent in this particular area. He could change his appearance at will though there were quite a few restrictions. One major restriction was that he could not change the appearance to other gender. Also the changes that he could perform were limited such that he could never change the color of his hairs or skin drastically. After removal of Horcrux, the infamous scar on his forehead was gone completely. But with new abilities he could make it appear again although not as prominent as its predecessor. Harry thought that it was a good way to disguise his true nature in front of Hogwarts population as there were too many future Death Eaters present.

With his shadow mage ability he had not progressed far off. He had a basic understanding of shadow manipulation; however he was at very preliminary stage to manipulate them. All he could do was bend the shadows slightly by using all the willpower he had. He had decided that when he would go back to Hogwarts, he would search for more information on this particular topic. It was something to be done in the future.

The next subject he had tackled was Alchemy. Although he was nowhere near at the stage of creating Philosophers Stone or Mithril yet, he had a very good understanding of the subject. He also knew that should he continue his studies in this subject, he would be able to create both these objects in the future. But again this was a plan for the future.

However, for once the fortune had smiled on Harry. The alchemy study material that Ragnok had procured was a gift from Nicholas Flamel. In the very first memory, Nicholas had thanked Harry for safekeeping his Philosopher Stone while it was in the Hogwarts. As a gift to Harry for his efforts, Nicholas and Perenelle had stored their memories about many subjects but main concentration was always on the Alchemy. Using these memories, Harry could easily understand the basics of the art of Alchemy.

But this was not the only gift the two legends had left behind. Their next gift was a more tricky matter. Nicholas had not explicitly mentioned details about this gift but spoke about it in riddles. Since Nicholas had taken the decision to destroy the Philosophers Stone, both the Flamel's knew that they had to distribute their property wisely. In addition to creating the memory journal for Harry, they had done similar work for many others. All they wanted to achieve was to make sure that the art of alchemy continued in the next generation. As an incentive to learn this art they had created a riddle. By solving this riddle correctly, one could get the password for their gift.

The catch was that one had to learn basic alchemy to solve this riddle. Also depending upon the interpretation of various aspects, each attempt could generate a different result. The highest order gift one could have was the stock of Mithril generated by Nicholas. This gift also contained the notes and memories from Nicholas about higher studies in alchemy. One also had an option to retry the riddle in the hope of getting better understanding.

After few small level successful attempts to solve the riddle given to Harry – where he deducted the gifts such as pure glass containers to store alchemy based potions or cauldron to prepare such potions or rune craving tools – Harry decided to attempt it get his hands on higher order gifts. Thus major of part of the last two years of his stay in time chamber was devoted in learning more and more of alchemy. Finally he was confident that he would be able to get a top order prize after re-solving the riddle. To his great delight he was successful and received the pass phrase through which he could have the Mithril Stock that Nicholas had stored.

It was to be used with the modified and unique portkey – one which was passed with initial memory journal – which would act in way that once activated; the user would receive the intended package. The activation phase needed for the portkey was answer of the riddle. However the actual answer also contained description of gift.

Harry was glad that time chamber prevented any portkey activation. This ensured that he did not accidently activated the portkey first time he had solved the riddle as the portkey would become invalid after a single use. This was to ensure that one beneficiary could only receive the gift one time. The riddle was also charmed in such a way that only still available gifts would be present as the answers. Once the gift was taken, it would be removed from the answer list.

Thus when Harry had used his portkey in office of Ragnok, he was unsurprised to receive the 7 boxes congaing more memories from Nicholas and Perenelle along with approximately 150 grams of Mithril. From his lessons on goblin culture he knew that there were 13 goblin clans present in the London. He also knew that Mithril was one element that goblins valued above all else. Thus Harry had every intension of using this newly obtain gift to purchase the Tailbird Island from goblins.

Just on the cue, a goblin helper came to Directors office to announce the invitation of requesting his presence in goblin council. Harry immediately agreed and stored his newly found memories from Flamel's inside the shrunken trunk he was carrying with him. He also took the Mithril case in his hand and asked the helper goblin to lead the way. As a precaution, Harry had activated his sensor blocking device to full force and thus he could use it only for 2 feet radius area. This helped him in avoiding the brute force of Gringotts wards without losing his protection and safety tests.

-TFB-

9th July, Meeting with Goblin Council, Gringotts

When Harry entered the Council Chamber, he could see the round table conference. There were total 14 chairs available and out of them 13 were currently occupied. There were also few seats available on far side of the main central table. Those chairs looked like they were there for the visitors. He turned his attention back to main central table. The only unoccupied chair was of different design than other 13 chairs. It was older and yet more regal looking than the other 13. On the right side of this chair Ragnok was situated. He nodded his head towards Harry and indicated that Harry should occupy the last chair beside him.

Harry immediately understood the meaning of the chair – it was reserved for the King. He hesitated for a moment before taking his seat among the goblin council. He could see the questioning eyes of remaining goblin clan leaders, there opposition to him seating on such important chair. But there eyes went wide with surprise when the Royal Phoenix totem of Pendragon Family made its appearance.

Every goblin present in the meeting immediately stood and gave a very formal bow to Harry. Once the phoenix had taken long enough look at them, Harry felt the pressure on his head leaving and just like that the totem disappeared. It looked like the Phoenix appeared to stress the position Harry held. However he was confused when goblins refused to take their seats back. So he asked Ragnok, "Um, Director Ragnok why is everybody still standing? Is there any problem?"

Ragnok, who understood the problem; immediately answered back to Harry, "My Lord, when you took your rightful seat as Goblin King by seating on this chair, we are bound by magic and oaths to serve you. The presence of Royal Phoenix has just hammered the point to us of the power you wield and our duty to the Throne."

Harry noted the careful use of his formal title as King and understood the situation finally; straightaway asked all clan leaders to take back their respective seats before addressing them. He said, "I thank you all for giving me the opportunity to meet you. As you know, I am the new Pendragon Lord and Heir to the throne of Camelot. With the help of lord Ragnok here, I have been training for past few days to better my understanding of magic and all that surrounds us in the magical world. But make no mistake; this meeting is not about abusing my power over you. As you may know, Lord Voldemort has started the chain of events that would bring him back to world of living."

He paused to judge their reactions but continued when none were coming his way. "What you all have to understand is that fighting Voldemort is but one of our problem. Yes he represents a major problem but the Ministry and Wizengamot which was formed to carry out justice in the absence of Camelot has gone corrupt. The balance of world has been lost to us for long time. As the rightful Heir of Camelot, I intend to change this. I plan to restore the old order of equivalence, where each and every magical being would be treated with equality. Yes there would be difference between goblins and wizards and elves and other magical beings; but that should not stop us all from co-existing peacefully. For this I would need your help."

He again paused and this time saw few reactions for briefest of periods. There were some clan lords who looked thoughtful and some whose eyes were wide with surprised. Some others were throwing the hateful glare at him. Harry however continued, "I am here to do a business with goblins in my capacity as Lord Pendragon and not as Heir to the Throne. I am not going to force you to do something that I want using my title, but I urge you to listen to my proposal carefully before deciding on this."

Once more Harry took a pause and made sure to make eye-contact with each and every clan leader. Once he was satisfied that he had made his point he continued, "Right now magical Briton is in great turmoil. If I want to restore the old order then it cannot happen by starting in Briton. I would need a diplomatic independency to do that. This can only be achieved if I have a land which would not fall under Magical Britons jurisdiction. There are two such islands that I know of – one is Azkaban and the other is Tailbird. Now as you can see that I cannot get any control over Azkaban Island without alerting the Ministry. That leaves the option of Tailbird. Thus I want to buy the Tailbird Island from goblins."

Now there were many different reactions from clan leader. One of them started shouting about how he could never purchase the island. Other questioned whether he could produce such large scale money. One more leader wanted to know about how Harry could know something about Tailbird. Many other were still waiting for him to continue. Finally after a chaos of about 2 minutes, Harry slammed his hand on the table and glared at everyone who was challenging him. Once more he made a strong eye contact with them. Unknown to him, his magic was reacting and there was a faint glow of the shield around him.

Once everybody was settled back, Harry continued, "I told you to hear me out. So I don't know what you were expecting from that particular agitation. Anyway I would like to complete my offer. As you know that I want to purchase the Tailbird Island outright. As I understand, the total money that I have in my account is not sufficient to purchase it. But I have something else to offer. I would like to offer 5 grams of Mithril to each goblin clan along with 10 grams to Gringotts London. That is I want to purchase Tailbird Island in exchange of 80 grams of Mithril. What do you think?"

Once Harry had made the offer, everybody was stunned. Even Ragnok was looking at him in odd way. However, one of the clan leader shouted, "How do we know that it is authentic Mithril and not some stolen good? You may not have done that but somebody from your ancestors could have done the deed. Now when we would take it, the deed would come back on our head isn't it?"

Harry was happy to answer that. "This Mithril I am offering is unique as it is generated by Alchemy. You can verify it whenever you want. Also to satisfy your all remaining doubts, I am ready to give my oath about this Mithril being not a stolen item. Would that be sufficed?"

Now the goblin clan members were thinking. Harry knew that goblins were greedy by nature and he would have to part with much more than 80 grams he had proposed first. He was waiting for the penny to be dropped. As if on the queue another goblin spoke, "You make an admirable offer my lord. But the value of Tailbird is far more to us. It is our safe heaven where nobody but the goblins could enter. It also contains number of mines which could produce valuable materials such as Gold. I am of the personal opinion that this is but a small offer against what we would loose with Tailbird."

Harry could see that most of the other leaders were of similar opinion. He also looked at Ragnok to judge his reaction. However Ragnok was sitting with very poker face. So Harry decided to increase the offer. He said, "Ok. In that case my dear master goblin, I would like to increase my offer to 7 grams of Mithril to each clan along with 10 grams to Gringotts. Also Goblins would always have the safe house on Tailbird Island irrespective of the ownership."

Now all clan leaders were in deep thought. On one hand the offer given to them was very tempting. But so was the importance of Tailbird Island. They were in a dilemma when Harry pulled out his final offer.

"I can see that you are seriously considering my offer about Tailbird. But I can also see some slight hesitation from you. So here is my final offer to you. If you accept, then we would do the business otherwise this conversation never happened. I would offer 10 grams of Mithril to each goblin clan and 10 grams to Gringotts. The 10 grams given to Gringotts, you can sell to any customer to generate the gold. However, I want complete ownership of Tailbird Island. That means once the deal is done, then the Tailbird Island would be a property of Pendragon Family and it would remain so even after my death. Now what do you say about this?" Harry asked.

This new offer created a buzz among the present goblins and after some small conversation, Ragnok asked Harry to wait outside so the council could take the decision. Thus Harry nodded to each clan leader and excused himself from the meeting room.

Once Harry was outside, the clan leaders started the arguments with renewed vigor. Some of them were already ready to accept the offer on the final terms given by Harry. But some were not convinced yet. Thus there were lots of arguments among the clan leaders. Finally Ragnok asked everybody to keep the decorum and decided to take opinion from each and everybody. Thus one by one each clan leader gave his opinion on the matter.

Some clan leaders raised questions about Harry's future plans and Ragnok was quick to shut them down as he explained to them that as the Heir to Throne of Camelot, Harry was entitled to make his plans. Furthermore he was judged worthy of inheriting this title my magic itself. The old magic imbedded in the Pendragon Lord ring would make sure that Harry does not go to a dark path without losing his magic. Thus Harry's intensions had to be pure about purchasing the Tailbird Island otherwise Phoenix would not have appeared when he entered the room to take his rightful seat.

After some more deliberation, all doubts raised by clan leaders were resolved by Ragnok. Finally the council decided to accept the proposal from Harry and they started making the relative papers as Ragnok was sure that Harry would like to finish the transaction as fast as possible. The council also sent out the invitation to their chief inventory goblin and metallurgy specialist to verify the validity of Mithril that Harry would sell them. Once they all were ready, Harry was invited back in the room.

When Harry retook his seat at the head chair, Ragnok informed him that council has agreed to accept his offer provided Harry can prove the authenticity of his claims about Mithril. He also introduced the two new goblins who were going to verify his claims. Harry accepted this and passed on the box containing Mithril to them for verification.

Further he gave the oath by pulling out his wand, "I, Harry James Potter, Heir to the Throne of Camelot, swear on my magic that the Mithril that I have acquired is by valid means and it is not stolen from its previous owner. Further this Mithril was produced using Alchemy. So I say, so mote it be."

Once the oath was complete, there was large flash of magic passing through him as it was accepted. To signify that it was a true oath, Harry then casted a silent, low powered "_Lumos_" to light up his wand. This indicated that his magic was still there.

Once this was finished, Ragnok told Harry to not use the wand on Gringotts territory if it is possible. As the true King, Harry could use it but it would only cause more trouble than it was worth it. He also reminded Harry that for pulling out such stunt he could have been killed. Since all present goblin leaders were aware of his status, they had decided to ignore it.

Ragnok then provided Harry the papers that he would have to sign to complete the transaction. Harry agreed and started looking through them. He noticed that there would be separate transactions for each goblin clan. He also noted that once sold, his right to Mithril is completely removed and same was the case with Tailbird Island. This was unusual for goblins as they like to keep their right intact and normally deal with such items as long term lease. Once Harry was satisfied that all papers were in order, he started signing them by using the blood quill provided by Ragnok. He also stamped them using his Pendragon Lord ring.

Once the papers were signed, the goblin named Goldrim – the chief inventory goblin – started weighing the Mithril and dividing it in 10 grams part. Once he was done, he handed all the parts – 15 in total – back to Harry; who then gave 13 such parts to the clan leaders. Harry also gave one part to Ragnok as he was the director of Gringotts.

Once every clan member received their share of Mithril, they all in turned signed the agreement which sold the rights of Tailbird Island to Pendragon Family. Once all the transaction related business was closed, Harry thanked each goblin leader personally and told them that he would like to work with them in the future. He also assured them that he would do everything that he could to ensure the equality was restored between all the magical races.

Finally Harry instructed Ragnok that the security cover provided on Tailbird Island by goblins should be continued till further instructions from Harry. Harry would pay for this service. He would also meet Ragnok next day to discuss the further plans. Harry also gave last 10 grams Mithril Part to Ragnok for safekeeping. With another major milestone achieved, Harry headed to Leaky Cauldron to spend the night in disguised form under the name of John Clapton.

-TFB-

To Be Continued.

**Author Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing in advance. This chapter is not proof corrected. I do not have a beta writer who would kindly do such things so you may find few mistakes. Also please note that English is not my First Language. So for any mistakes in the chapter, I take total responsibility for it and am very sorry for the same.**

**Thanks for the reviews. Let me make few points clear here. I normally do not have time to respond via PMs so I will take this opportunity to answer few questions which were raised in reviews.**

**1****st**** Point: The plot of this story will have all the major events of cannon e.g. Triwizard Tournament, Madness of Ministry etc.**

**2****nd**** Point: The very knowledgeable Harry and his performance in Hogwarts would be tackled in next 2 or 3 chapters. So please wait for it. I have made Harry undergo all this training for a reason and as plotline opens up you would get to know it. Why Harry can perform so well in alchemy? I think I have covered that point in this chapter.**

**3****rd**** Point: Weasley Bashing. I won't go for complete bashing of all Weasley members. There would be some selective bashing (similar to what JKR did with Percy in OoTP and HBP). However unlike JKR I am not inclined to give second, third and fourth chances to everybody for redemption. So most of the characters would have to live with the consequences of what they have done previously. It is not complete bashing of anybody yet. Remember Molly never denied that she used love potions on Arthur (at least to my knowledge). We have a monster called Voldemort in this world because of similar love potion based incident. But still use of any love potion is not a crime in Wizarding world. Whatever the history / information I am providing here in initial chapters would actually have some impact in the future chapters as well. So please wait in this regard as well.**

**4****th**** Point: Not Yet Dead People. I personally always wondered about Voldemort's approach in HBP and DH books (Cannon timeline and books). He was not most inclined to spilt the blood of any witch/wizard who was pureblood (Luna, Ollivander are prime example). He only kept them as prisoners. It is highly likely that Voldemort might have used similar method in 1****st**** war as well. We know from cannon world that in 1****st**** war many families – pureblood light families – were completely wiped out. If Voldemort was not so keen to spill such important (pure) blood in 2****nd**** war then the only reason he must have wiped out entire pureblood families is for some other purpose. **

**The reason I took here is "Not Yet Dead People" and these people are under stasis in Voldemort's personal prison. The concept of personal prison is taken from Grindelwald. You may like it or not but this is how I will continue. To my knowledge this kind of plot line has not been used. If somebody has already done this, then I am extremely sorry for using the same plot line without asking you but I really don't know about similar story. As I have already mentioned in previous chapters, anybody else who wants to use this plot can do so. **

**Remember this is an AU world and the only reason I am writing such thing on FF is because I want I was not happy with what I got from JKR in the end. Yes as books I love Harry Potter but I was never happy with HP/GW pairing. After reading many FF stories, I would much prefer many other girls for Harry than Ginny Weasley (as she is a typical Fan Girl). So please give me some slack here. **

**5****th**** Point: Harry's missing education. The chapters' which covers Harry's main education in time chamber are to give fair bit of idea about how much progress he had made. While I would like to think that I have covered most of the classes here (Chapter 3, 4); I may have missed something. In this case I am very sorry. In some cases, I have intentionally left the discussion about these classes – such wizard culture – because I want to have it as a flashback in later chapters. So please bear with such mistakes.**

**Also please do not forget to Review, as it helps me in ironing out small missing cases in plot.**

**Wishing you all a very Happy New Year (I Know it is little late, but still).**

**Have a great 2015.**

**This was also a mostly filler chapter and hence a small one. However there were few important events I have covered such as Harry's meeting with Mad-eye and his purchase of Tailbird Island. I hope I have also covered most of the queries those were posted via reviews.**

**Expect the next chapter in about one months' time. We would cover the rest of the summer activities in next chapter – including Quidditch World Cup. It would be a bigger chapter than this one (around 12-14K words). **

**Thanks once more and bye for now.**

**Stats Update**

**Views: 2, 618**

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**Reviews: 12**

**This chapter was published on 22****nd**** January 2015. **

**-** **GeniusReader**


	5. Chapter 5 – The Whirlwind Summer

**Harry Potter: The Flag Bearer of the Throne**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter world. This is a work of fiction.

**Reference: Harry's Account Managers**

Sharpclaw, Axemage and Norgruk

**Reference: Harry's Family Lines**

Lord of – Pendragon, Peverell, Gryffindor, Slytherin

Heir of – Potter

**Chapter 5 – The Whirlwind Summer**

_Last Time_

_Finally Harry instructed Ragnok that the security cover provided on Tailbird Island by goblins should be continued till further instructions from Harry. Harry would pay for this service. He would also meet Ragnok next day to discuss the further plans. Harry also gave last 10 grams Mithril Part to Ragnok for safekeeping. With another major milestone achieved, Harry headed to Leaky Cauldron to spend the night in disguised form under the name of John Clapton._

_-__**TFB**__-_

**Meeting with Ragnok, 10****th**** July**

Next day after eating a heavy breakfast in Leaky Cauldron, Harry went to Gringotts bright and early. He had decided to keep his new appearance for time being as Moody's lesson of constant vigilance had resonated with him deeply. He had learned the advantages of keeping his enemy in dark, while doing his work silently. Also if the public saw him in Diagon ally today they would flock him and word was sure to reach Prof. Dumbledore who might want Harry to go back to Dursleys. Harry was not sure about Prof. Dumbledore's plan yet and thus was not ready to take any chance whatsoever because of which he would have to go back to Dursley house. Thus he was keeping his appearance hidden under the guise of John Clapton.

Once he reached his desired destination – the Gringotts – he approached a free teller and showed him the Peverell Lord Ring as secretly as possible. The teller immediately abandoned his work and beckoned Harry to follow him. Once the teller had vacated his position, another goblin took the same position instantly. Harry looked at this exchange of goblin tellers with wide eyes; amazed at the efficiency that goblins casually displayed to the wizards. But when the goblin leading Harry to director's office cleared his throat, Harry shook his head and followed the little fellow towards his destination – the office of director Ragnok – smiling slightly at the impatience of teller.

Once he reached the office, the teller goblin announced Harrys' presence to director who immediately invited Harry inside his office and dismissed the teller. Ragnok also sent invites to three account managers of Harry. Harry took the offered seat opposite Ragnok and greeted the director. Not a minute letter Harrys three account managers – Sharpclaw, Axemage and Norgruk – entered the chamber. Once all participants were present for the meeting, Ragnok locked the chamber and greeted Harry formally congratulation him for his success.

"Welcome Harry, welcome back to Gringotts. You have done exceptionally well in the time chamber as far as your studies were concerned and if your teachers were to be believed you have now all the arsenal to become a true Mage. I also offer my heartiest congratulations to you for your purchase of Tailbird Island. Even though I am sad to part with it as a goblin, I am sure you can use it to bring back the old order in this world and time."

Harry smiled and accepted compliment. He also greeted the goblins according to their positions. For next 30 minutes or so, Harry enthralled them with the story of how Harry found out the greatest of prize set to the quest designed by Nicholas Flamel – a quest which could only be solved if one knew alchemy well. This explained the real story about existence of Mithril in Harrys care. Once he finished the story, Ragnok asked few questions about his general progress. Harry gladly answered those questions and gave a brief overview to Ragnok about his various activities in last 3 years of Time Chamber.

When all such light conversations were finished, Harry started the discussion on more serious note. This part was to deal with business and other activities that Harry wanted to undertake. First was payment of his teachers. Thus Harry asked Ragnok, "Director, I have used the time chamber facility from Gringotts. You had also hired some of the best teachers out there to teach me magic. What about the cost of this?"

Ragnok was glad that Harry asked this question himself, as it spared him of bringing this issue up later on. He replied, "As of now, Gringotts have done all the payment Harry. As a director of bank, I am allowed to make such transactions and we have done so. The total cost of this excursion was 30 million Galleons including the cost of time chamber use – which costs you about Five million Galleons per day."

Harry accepted it and said, "Master Sharpclaw, please make sure that you transfer the 30 million Galleons to Gringotts as early as possible. I would also like to thank you Director for all the efforts you have taken in this period. I may have demanded few things from you, but you did all the work without any complaints and most of the time you did it thinking ahead. You have no idea how much this has helped me."

Sharpclaw nodded and took a note of the task given to him by Harry. The next topic of discussion was division of the workload between his three managers. Harry stated, "As all of you know, my ultimate aim is to make this country a peaceful one where each and every magical race can live together in harmony. But to achieve this I would have to start from basic. For past few years – while I was in time chamber – I had made some basic plans for the future – mainly about what preparations we should make and all. I won't share all the plans with you now as they are not complete yet. Also you are going to be one of the important beneficiaries once those changes are implemented. But I would share some details about them as and when required. Now the problem is that I have covered number of different areas with these plans and thus I have decided that it would be better if each of my account managers handles certain type of job. So if you have any preference then let me know about it." Harry added while looking at his three account managers.

Harry took a pause to see the reaction. When everybody was ready to go ahead, he continued, "As you may have known, I have purchased Tailbird Island from Goblins. On this island I plan to carry out lot of development work. It would be long and extensive work. If it is acceptable to him, then I would like to assign Master Norgruk to oversee this work."

When Norgruk bowed his head in acceptance, Harry continued, "Thank you Master Norgruk. Unless there is an immediate need, I would like a brief report of your work every month. Also the funding is to be handled via Pendragon Vault. On this project hangs the outcome of my ultimate goal and thus it is very important. I have full confidence that you would do it well. As a first job, I want you to build a large library near the southern side of the Swan Lake. Make sure that most of the windows and hall would face the lake and scenery beyond it."

Norgruk was taking notes about his job while Harry was describing it. Harry then went on to explain all the different ideas he had about this library. It was kind of a central library through which those who had an access can take any book at any time. The concept was similar to muggle internet however; Harry wanted to achieve it using some specially made enchanted objects. But for now, the structure of library needed to be built and then it had to be populated with books. So he instructed Norgruk about physical appearance of library. Finally Harry finished the instructions by telling Norgruk that he should get the design and architecture from muggle architecture and then modify it for magical use. Harry also promised to discuss this project with Dr. Ian McKay – who was Harry's architecture teacher – and spend some more time with Norgruk while finalizing the design.

When Harry asked about the timeline that would be required for such construction, it was Ragnok who answered him, saying, "Harry, in general such large scale construction would take about years' time. This is because if we develop a structure muggle way and then adds magical values to it then it will last longer than most others. It is also true that in some cases you have to use magic but in general it is better to do construction muggle way first. But if I understood the timeline you would be working with then I suggest that you allow goblins or dwarfs to compete the job, since their magic is more attuned to such work. This would allow you to complete the work in much less time – about 50 days – although the cost may be little on the higher side."

Harry thought about it and then instructed, "Very well, since I do have a time restriction, I would accept your suggestion director Ragnok. Norgruk I would leave it to you to decide how to do this work – whether only goblins would work there or dwarfs would also be part of it. I know that in the past wizards have treated dwarfs badly – especially in Briton – but if you could convince them it would be great. Also I would like to have finished this project before 1st September. Is that ok with you?"

Norgruk nodded and told Harry that him that he would contact Harry soon about finalizing the design of new Library. Harry then turned his attention to Axemage. He said, "Master Axemage I want you to do small little errands for me for next year or so. The first such job is collecting books for my library. Now that I would have a library on Tailbird, I want to stock it with rare and important tomes. Here is a list of books I have prepared while I was in the time chamber. You can and should add any other books you want to. Also I think in main Potter vault there would be some books; you can also add them in this collection. Same goes for the Pendragon and Peverell Vaults and books inside them. This would give me opportunity to concentrate my time on other jobs. As far as finance for your job is concerned, use the Peverell Vault. Is that ok with you?"

Once Axemage cleared his doubts about this job and accepted it, where Harry gave him permission to purchase books from auctions done across the world, Harry turned to Sharpclaw. "Master Sharpclaw, I want you to handle the finances of my house. I know there are only few businesses where Potter Family has shares now – as my father sold most of them during the last war – but I want you to start acquiring them back. I think right now the control is with most of the purebloods who earns lot of money from hardworking magical folks without doing any major job. This has given them a sense of superiority over other. Further they would use this money to support Lord Voldemort in next war which would hinder the goodwill done by us. I want to cripple their finances. If they have money in Gringotts it is good because as a wanted criminal they won't be able to access it. But if they are generating it every day, then it is difficult to stop. So buy as many stocks as possible from them in next year, even at a slightly higher price. I would also recommend doing this business early before they got the hint of what is going on. It is also possible that if Voldemort contacts them sometime in next year, they may not sell the holdings."

Sharpclaw had lot of questions about this endeavor and after resolving them, he agreed to do this job with the help of Axemage. Ragnok also suggested that they should try to exploit any previous debts these families may have to either Lord Pendragon or Lord Peverell – especially Lord Peverell. By calling those debts, they could force these families to sell their shares in various businesses. Harry instructed them to target known death eaters' families first such as Malfoy or Nott. He also told them to lay off Black Family for now.

Once this was done, Harry told Sharpclaw that he would expect a monthly report on this front as well. He also advised them that they should hold on to this information as long as possible and should inform ministry as late as possible. This was to avoid any unnecessary attention to him or more specifically Lord Peverell. After that he dismissed the three managers for their work and turned his attention back to Ragnok.

Now Harry updated Ragnok about various side projects he had undertaken while working in Time Chamber such as his Sensory ability, Horcrux hunt etc. Ragnok in turned told him about Horcrux hunt inside the Gringotts. He told Harry that it has not started yet as Gringotts is still under the process of preparation. Their other shared goal of learning the names of people kept in stasis by Voldemort has also not started fluently. Harry was bit disappointed to hear this news but consoled himself that once Ragnok gets some time; he would do these jobs thoroughly.

Finally Harry requested Ragnok a list of muggleborns and squibs. He said, "Director, I think if I have to produce few items without getting detected by ministry then it is best done by people who are not on ministries radar. That means Squibs and Muggleborns. Is there any way that Gringotts can provide me a list of squibs and muggleborns?"

Ragnok replied, "I am sorry Harry but I would have to decline your request. You see, we do not have list of muggleborns at all as most of them are not our direct client. Such list is maintained by Ministry. If you request them then you may receive such information; however you would also draw unnecessary attention towards yourself. As for the squibs, it would be against the privacy of our clients."

Before Harry could express his disappointment on this, Ragnok however continued, "There is one more way. What we could do is get the genealogy books and then search there. It may not work well, but you would still get few names of the squibs and then through them you could get others."

Harry accepted that this is the best case scenario and asked Ragnok to work on this. He also offered services of Axemage for this job, which Ragnok took and promised to give such list to Harry by end of July.

The final point that Harry wanted to discuss with Ragnok was little more complex. Harry wanted semi-independency from British ministry for Tailbird Island. When he told Ragnok about this idea, Ragnok was pensive for long time. Finally he replied, saying, "It would be very difficult Harry. There is only one body who can grant such access to you – ICW. If we put forward such proposal there, then many would oppose it as by granting permissions to us, they would be making precedence. This would be unacceptable at ICW. Thus making Tailbird semi-independent would be very difficult."

Harry then replied back, "I agree with you on this point director – that ICW won't grant us any permission. But if my knowledge is correct then British Ministry of Magic was formed by Merlin after the fall of Camelot on the orders of King Arthur. At the same time King Arthur had granted the goblin nation permission to use Tailbird Island. Thus we can show that Tailbird was always an independent nation – formed by King Arthur for emergency use – and secured by Goblin nation. Now that a new Lord Pendragon is present, he wants to take control of this nation. We may show the purchasing transaction as fee paid by Pendragon Family for keeping Tailbird Safe. In this case we may prove the independence of Tailbird to ICW, right?"

Now Ragnok was thinking. He replied, "There is some merit to this argument Harry. But I would have to search more. Also you are correct that goblin land is recognized as independent country even at ICW. So in theory we could actually get such status for Tailbird."

Harry was happy to hear this. He told Ragnok to look into this matter on priority and if possible then try to get the independent country status as early as possible. Ragnok accepted and told Harry that he would do all that is possible to achieve this status to Tailbird. With that Harry took his leave and went to Diagon Ally for shopping.

**-TFB-**

**Shopping in Diagon Ally, 10****th**** July**

When Harry left Gringotts, it was time for a lunch and thus Harry went to Leaky for a quick lunch. After eating his share, he went back to Ally for completing his shopping. The first stop was a visit to Ollivander. Harry had kept his disguise on from the moment he left directors office in Gringotts and hence he was mightily surprised when Ollivander addressed him in his creepy tone, "Hello Mr. Potter. I hope that your wand is all well. 11 inch, Phoenix feather and Holy wood, am I correct? It was a powerful wand Mr. Potter. One of the best I have ever made."

Harry was flustered by the correct addressing used by Ollivander and thus took some time to compose himself. After that he addressed, "Oh, the wand is all right Mr. Ollivander. Yes it is a good wand indeed. But before we discuss the business for which I am here, can you tell me how did you recognize me?"

Ollivander looked at him critically for almost 2 minutes before replying, "I am afraid, it is a trade secret Mr. Potter. But I don't see any problem shading some light on this matter for your reference. You see, we wand makers use magical auras of wizards and witches to detect the wand compatibility. Since you had already visited this place before I knew your aura and hence I knew it was you even if you are in disguise."

Harry was surprised to learn this. He immediately took a note to look for wand lore so that he could fine tune his Sensory ability further. But for now, he had a job in hand. He told Ollivander, "Thank you for sharing your secret with me Mr. Ollivander. I promise you that I won't share it with anybody. Now about the reason I am here in your store. As you can see, my curse scar has been healed successfully this summer. But since then, I feel like I have more magical energy in me and my spell casting – whenever I have tried that is – has become erratic at best. Sometimes I have to put more energy to get desired results and sometimes the spells are overpowered even though very little magic is used. Can you take a look at this wand please?"

Again Ollivander took his time studying Harry and later the Holy and Phoenix wand. Harry meanwhile had changed his appearance back to its original state. Finally Ollivander let out a sigh and said, "You are of course right Mr. Potter. This wand will not work best for you anymore. There is a slight but distinct mismatch between your wand and your core. We will have to find a new wand for you now. But the problem is how to do so? Last time I had to dig very deep in my store to find out this wand. No the better solution would be to make a custom wand. Come with me Mr. Potter. We have a wand to make."

Now Harry was truly stunned. A custom wand, made for him? This was well beyond his imagination of what would happen when he entered the shop. Still reeling from the shock, Harry silently followed the wand maker in the work area. Once there, he could see lots of wood stored on one side wall while it's opposite wall contained some really exotic material – most likely the wand cores, Harry guessed. In middle there was a large workbench along with a cauldron full of some kind of potion. Ollivander explained, "Normally not many people can visit this place Mr. Potter. In fact you are the first one to visit this part of store in last 10 years. And yes I need that potion while making the wand. And no I cannot tell you what it is unless you are my apprentice. Now let's start our work shall we?"

Ollivander paused for a moment before continuing, "All you will have to do is, check each and every core material and wood. Those for which you have strongest affinity would glow brightly. I would be able to see that and you would be able to feel it. So let's see the result. First start with the cores please."

Harry obeyed the instructions and started checking the core material. For some he got slight pull, for many there was no pull at all. He got one of the strongest pull fairly early but before he could contemplate on it, similar intensity pull was detected later on. All in all he was confused between 3 materials as which one was strongest. He thought Ollivander would know for sure.

The checking of wood was much simpler process. There was only one strongest pull. But many other wood materials had shown considerable affinity to him. When he finished his examination, Ollivander smiled at him brightly and waved his wand to collect the different materials before explaining, "You are very unique customer Mr. Potter. You have shown a remarkable affinity to most of the common wood materials. That means you could work with moderate success to any common wands made up from these woods and their compatible cores such as dragon heartstring or Unicorn tail hair. However the wood you chose is the wood used to make the strongest wand on the earth – Elder wood. Here take a look."

When Harry looked at the wood, he was speechless. It was almost white of color and gave a powerful hum. Harry knew that it can hold some of the very best and strong core material inside it. Ollivander however continued his explanation, "But the real surprise Mr. Potter is not the wood. Yes it is rare to use Elder wood for wand making but this store had sold wands made from elder. I distinctly remember that your grandfather had a wand of Elder wood and Unicorn Tail Hair. No the real surprise is the core material you have chosen. Tell me Mr. Potter which one of the three cores would you choose?"

Harry stared at him before replying, "Um, I don't know Mr. Ollivander. I think all three cores had shown same amount of affinity. I believed you would be able to detect the correct core material."

Ollivander smiled at him and said, "You are correct Mr. Potter. Your observations are not wrong as you have shown same amount of affinity to not 1 but 3 different core materials. And mind you, all three are very powerful cores in their own rights. The first is a phoenix feather. I acquired it just few days back. And believe me the phoenix who gave this feather had given only 2 more. I think you know where those 2 feathers have been used, right Mr. Potter?"

When Harry nodded mutely – still thinking about the fact that he would still have to share the connection with wand wielded by Voldemort – and Ollivander continued, "Magic works in mysterious way Mr. Potter. For all we know, Phoenix is the creature of light. They are proud and knowledgeable. They do things beyond our comprehension. I think this particular phoenix knew what he was doing when he gave me this feather. Do not bother yourself too much about this Mr. Potter."

Harry was glad to hear those kind words and concentrated back on the task at hand – listening to explanations given by Ollivander on his selected core materials. Ollivander continued his explanation duly, "The second core material you have chosen is a Thunderbird Tail Feather. It is very rare core material in Europe as thunderbirds are not commonly found here these days. Once upon the time there were few thunderbirds here but they all migrated to other areas of world over the time. The feather you have chosen is the oldest core material I have in this store. It was acquired by my grandfather and I believe it is of the last thunderbird who had resided in the Europe. I am very happy that you have chosen it. Normally we wand makers do not use such kind of material in making the everyday wands. We always store them as they make fiercely powerful core and it is very rare that somebody pick up such wand."

"The third Material you have selected is a Thestral tail hair. Now it is not uncommon to get a Thestral tail hair but people do not like these magnificent animals these days. They think it is a bad omen – Omen of Death. So I have abandoned the use of Thestral tail hairs while making the wands for quite some time, a pity really. Like Phoenix and Thunderbird Feathers, Thestral tail Hairs is also very strong core material. Trust me Mr. Potter; you have selected the most powerful wand cores available in this store. I was right all those years back, great many things are expected from you. And now I am certain, you would do those things in balanced way."

Harry again had feeling of deva-vu. He was not sure whether he liked the old wand maker or not. But Ollivander did not give him the time to continue his musings. He said, "I would need around 4 to 5 hours to make this wand. So you can visit me back today evening around 6 pm to collect the wand. Meanwhile you can finish your other business in the Diagon Ally." Harry thanked the wand maker and accepted the proposal. He left the store quickly but not before putting his disguise back. The next shop he was targeting was Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream parlor. He needed an Ice Cream to settle the nerves.

**-TFB-**

After eating his Ice Cream quickly, Harry made his way towards the trunk shop. He had seen Mad-eye Moody using a 7 compartment trunk and was very much determined to get one for himself. When he was young, Hagrid had overpowered him and bought the standard trunk. But now that he had seen one of the best trunks available in the market, Harry was determined to procure himself one. When he reached the required store, he was greeted by the shop owner, "Hello, how can we the Turner Trunks help you today?"

Harry replied, "Hello Mr. Turner. I want to buy a new multi compartment trunk. Can you show me the available models and their respective costs?"

Mr. Turner was surprised at the request. The Multi-compartment trunks were very costly affair. The customer in front of him was at best just graduated from school and more probably was still in the school. So he was little skeptical about the request as he may not able to afford the purchase. Hence he reluctantly showed the standard 3 compartment models to customer – one John Clapton.

Harry was annoyed at the fact that Mr. Turner was not taking him seriously and hence he asked little more firmly, "Please Mr. Turner, do not bother about cost. I can afford the very best trunks available in this shop and I want to purchase exactly that – the very best model you can afford. Show me some variety in 7 compartment trunks please."

Mr. Turner was still annoyed and told Harry with a sneer, "Mr. Clapton, those models would cost you upwards of 5000 galleons. Are you sure you can still afford them?"

Harry silently took out his bottomless money pouch and thought of 5000 Galleons. A new pouch containing 5000 galleons was there in hand immediately which he kept on the counter and asked, "Now Mr. Turner, I have been very patient with you. If you still insist on not selling me trunk of my requirement and choice, I am sure I can find some other store to get this job done. So are you or are you not going to do business with me?"

The owner was stunned at the casual display of the wealth in front of him. He quickly apologized to Harry and started showing him the very best models available. Mr. Turner also explained that material used in creating the trunk determines the capacity and features of trunk. Finally Harry selected a 7 compartment truck made up of Peruvian Horntail Dragon hide mixed with Basilisk hide. The Basilisk hide was used on outer layer while dragon hide was used in the inner layers. This allowed them to expand the trunk more than when only one hide is used. Harry also asked for best defense wards to be placed on his trunk along with standard set of charms such as featherweight, auto portable etc.

The first compartment was very simple and resembled the standard trunk. It was to be used for general purpose. The second compartment was made up of two rooms – one for cloths and other for books. The next 2 compartments were used for Potions and Runes Lab. The 5th compartment was Fitness center and contained a large ground where Harry could do his morning runs. Harry had also planned to install some basic muggle fitness devices such as cycles and weights here so he can sometimes use it to improve his physic. The next compartment was heavily warded dueling room. Here Harry had also purchased some practice dummies. With their help Harry was sure that he would be able to continue horning his dueling skills. Mr. Turner had additionally used another dragon hide to cover the dueling area so that no spell can go out of this compartment. The final compartment was a fully furnished 3 BHK flat that contained a large bathroom for his relaxation purpose. He had every intension to use it after his morning workout or after tiring Quidditch practice sessions.

Once the details were sorted out, Mr. Turner along with his helpers started working on the trunk. He promised Harry that it would be ready within 2 hours. Harry then left for other shopping tasks such as purchasing the Potion ingredients, Potion equipment, Rune carving material along with some experimental rune setups, warding material and any other material that he could think of.

Once he was finished his long shopping list, he returned to the trunk shop where Mr. Turner was ready with his brand new trunk. Harry then checked the various features installed in the trunk and finished the total payment of 14,546 Galleons. He then shrunk the trunk and left the shop for his impending visit to Ollivander.

**-TFB-**

Ollivander was eagerly waiting for Harry to arrive. The moment Harry stepped inside his store; he took Harry's hand and almost dragged the teen to his work area. Once there he presented Harry with his new wand. It was a magnificent wand. The best Harry had ever seen. But before Harry could touch the wand, he felt tell-tell sign of Royal Phoenix arriving. He wondered what its purpose was today. As if on the queue, the Royal Phoenix made its appearance on Harry head. The reaction of Ollivander to see the family totem of Pendragon Family was very funny, at least according to Harry. His eyes almost pop out of their sockets. But the moment he connected the dots, he gave a deep bow.

The Royal Phoenix however was looking unerringly at the wand in the hands of Ollivander. After some time, he took a flight and then a beam of magic – golden in color – erupted from Phoenix and connected with the wand. After about 1 minute, the beam stopped and phoenix gave a small bow to Harry before he disappeared again. Only then Ollivander took a good look at Harry and Wand before silently asking Harry to take it. Harry followed the instructions and took the new wand in his hand.

The moment his hand touched the wand, his magic rejoiced. It was a feeling of great delight as if the two long lost brothers were united. Throughout his body Harry could feel his magic dancing, celebrating. It was a best feeling ever. As if these internal celebrations were not enough for occasion, his magic reacted and the entire work area was covered in various different flowers – Lily flowers were chief among them. Harry looked in wonder at this spectacle and then he looked softly at the wand maker to judge his reaction.

When their eyes met, Ollivander nodded towards Harry and beckoned him back to front of his shop. After he was seated in his chair behind the desk, he asked Harry to take the opposite sit. Only after Harry was seated did he start the dialog. "Mr. Potter that is the first time I have seen a Family totem giving its blessing to a wand. And it was not any family totem but a Royal Phoenix – Family Totem of Pendragon Bloodline. Do you have any idea why it happened?"

Harry took a deep breath and collected his thoughts before deciding to trust the old wand maker. "Mr. Ollivander, a family totem can make appearance only when head of family is present. As you have guessed, I was judged worthy of title of Lord Pendragon. I hope that answers your questions. Also because I am Lord Pendragon, I am also an emancipated minor. I hope you have not placed the trace on this wand as well."

Ollivander gave a small bow to him before answering back, "I have indeed placed the trace on this wand Mr. Potter. But I will remove it this very instant. As a wand maker I have those privileges. But coming back to my earlier point, I am deeply hounded to witness such occasion. The reason why I was so excited before was that the wand in your hand is probably the most powerful in the world. It took my all expertise to create this wand. I am very happy that it is going into your hands. It would be your most faithful companion in the world Mr. Potter."

Harry took one more look at the wand and then nodded his head towards Ollivander. It was indeed a very good wand. But before he left the store, he had one more job to do. Harry stated, "Mr. Ollivander, I hope that the scene you just witnessed and the subsequent secrets that I have shared with you would remain within these walls. I do plan to announce my true status to the world at large, but it would be some time in the future. Till then I would appreciate if you could keep these facts to yourself. Also I would be keeping both wands with me for now and would be using old wand in the school so as to not raise any suspicions. I hope that it would work decently for me."

The wand maker took out his own wand and gave the magical oath to Harry's secrets before Harry could protest and assured him that his older wand would work for him although it was advisable to keep using new wand as it was most attuned with his magic. Harry then purchased 2 wand hostlers of Aurror quality and paid the required money to Ollivander before taking his leave to head to Leaky for dinner.

**-TFB-**

After finishing his meal in Leakey, Harry decided to complete the last part of shopping – cloths and garments. He had already decided to use muggle cloths for most of the general work and hence he wanted to do this particular shopping in muggle London. Thus he exited the Leakey in muggle London and hailed a cab to reach his next destination – Harrods. He had also decided to use his original appearance for this particular shopping excursion for 2 reasons – 1st reason being Harry was sure that there won't be anyone who could recognize him as Harry Potter in muggle London and 2nd being that he wanted to buy garments for his original fitting.

After reaching the Harrods, Harry was very confused at the variety available to him. He had no previous experience of purchasing cloths for anybody let alone himself. Aunt Petunia never took him to any such shopping. Thus he was dumbfounded at the prospect of shopping. All he knew was that he had to buy everything that is available in Men's section.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) for Harry, there was somebody who actually did recognize him. Even though he was bit different than the last time she had seen him, Penelope Clearwater definitely recognized the most famous wizard after Dumbledore – Harry Potter – immediately after he had entered their store. She had observed him for past 5 minutes wandering from one section to other looking confused. And judging by his frenzied look, she deducted that he was baffled at the prospect of shopping. Since she was bit free in her role as sales girl, she decided to help him out and approached him cautiously.

"Can I help you with something Mr. Potter?" Penelope asked Harry from his behind. Harry who was thoroughly confused till then sharply turned back at the owner of voice; his hand instantly going in ready position for dueling stance. He was bit relieved when he looked at the sales girl before realizing that she was none other than Penelope Clearwater – girlfriend of Percy Weasley. He sighed and looked at her again before asking, "Err, Penelope Clearwater right?"

Penny (as Penelope was known among her friends), nodded before asking back, "Yes that is me Mr. Potter. So what are you doing here? You do look little baffled here, if you don't mind me saying it."

Harry, who was much calmer now because he knew the identity of person who had called him out, nodded and told her, "Err, I was here to do some shopping you know. But it is very confusing and I am not very sure about what to pick."

Penny gave him a big smile and told him that she would be glad to help him out – after all that was her job definition. Harry raised an eyebrow over this but decided to not ask any questions yet and accepted her help a bit sheepishly. Penny then guided Harry throughout the store to pick up all the required garments and necessities for him. After discreetly checking about his budget – to which he assured her that it was not a problem – she helped him in picking various shirts, t-shirts and jeans along with some high quality sports gear at Harry's insistence.

**-TFB-**

**London Adventure, Bond Cruz, 12****th**** July - 20****th**** August**

Once his shopping was done at Harrods, Harry had headed back to Leaky Cauldron for the night's stay. He arranged his shopping before sleeping and next morning he left the pub and headed in muggle world. He had every intention of spending majority of summer in muggle London as that would allow him to initiate his various plans. It would also provide him a relative security cover from wizarding public in general. The 1st thing he did was to contact Dr. Ian McKay. Once the contact was reestablished between Ian and Harry, Harry had spent next 3 days with Ian discussing and finalizing the architecture of Potter Manor he wanted to build at Tailbird Island. They also discussed general layout of Tailbird Island. Harry then went on to hire the services of Ian's firm for completing the architecture of various other projects he had in mind at Tailbird.

Harry had also introduced Ian to Norgruk so that the development work at Tailbird could continue without any hindrance. Ian had fair enough idea about Harry's choice and preference as far as architecture was concern and thus Harry was happy to delegate the more tedious work of planning to Ian's firm. This also enabled Ian to do something in magical world – the one which had rejected him so violently in the past. Initially Ian was bit reluctant to commit but then he was negotiating with Harry – the person who could charmed anybody (though Ian suspected Harry was quite unaware of this little fact). In the end, Ian agreed to provide all the necessary architecture plans to Norgruk and any other support needed for development work on Tailbird. The timeline that Norgruk and Ian gave Harry was around the May next year as far as major projects were concerned. Ian had also quickly developed the plan for Library building that Harry had commissioned as immediate need. This plan was finalized with the help of Harry himself while they were working on new Potter Manor.

As Ian's Office was near Highbury Stadium, Harry decided to stay in nearby hotel. This saved him unnecessary travel and excess use of metamorphous abilities. Ian helped him to settle there and from watching the stadium repeatedly Harry had decided to build a proper Quidditch stadium at Tailbird – for entertainment purpose. Initially he had decided to build a small pitch for family Quidditch near new Potter Manor but now he decided to upgrade it. He spoke with Ian and they agreed that it would be good for entertainment of community. Ian also suggested that they should update the design of Quidditch Stadium slightly so that it could be used for various other events.

The next suggestion made by Ian was also related to sports. He suggested him that Harry should build a Quidditch Practice Field – similar to training grounds that football clubs have. It was a very good idea and Harry liked it immediately. After thinking about it overnight, Harry asked Ian to do some preliminary work for such project. Harry further added that they should make it similar to muggle summer camps and should make provisions for various activities to take place – both for small children and adults. Harry decided to review the plans concerning Quidditch Practice Field later in the winter vacation.

**-TFB-**

After finishing his work with Ian, Harry concentrated on his other major hurdle – staying in muggle world for long term and undetected. He also wanted to start some work place where small scale rune carving could be done. He had decided to use the muggleborns and squibs as workforce in this particular endeavor. Thus he called Penny and took her to lunch at McDonalds for their meeting.

From their first meeting at Harrods, Harry had the impression that Penny was very cool about all Harry Potter stuff in general – as she had come from muggle world, his defeat of Voldemort had not been such a big event for her till she started Hogwarts. This was the most positive thing as far as Harry was concerned. What really boosted her image in Harry's opinion was her treatment of Harry. She had treated him as her equal, thus asking his opinion every now and then while giving her frank opinion on that particular matter. It was very new behavior of a girl to him and way more different than the way normally girls behave around Harry like Hermione (who would simply tell him that 'this one' is the best choice and anything else does not matter as she had done research on it) or Ginny (who would be too shy around him and would tell him everything looks good on him).

It was in that very meeting Harry and Penelope had formed a very different kind of relationship. After placing their orders, Harry asked the most obvious question he had since their meeting to Penny "Um…Penny, why are you working at cloths store as a sales girl if you don't mind me asking?"

This was a difficult topic for Penelope and she sighed after hearing the question. But she knew that she had to come clean about this as it would always be there in the discussion if not cleared immediately. So she started explaining the circumstances which forced her to take the job in muggle world.

Penny had lost her parents in car accident at the beginning of year. She had been overcome by grief back then but concentrated on her studies and completed the NEWTs with flying colors. It was then; the next tragedy had befallen on her. The discrimination of muggleborns in ministry and magical world had bitten her in most unfortunate manner. The best job she was offered by ministry was that of lowly clerk – that to on a temporary basis – to some purebloods who were incompetent to do their work. They would only want muggleborns as their juniors and clerks – as they could be hired on temporary basis without getting in trouble – because they were sure that a better qualified muggleborns could do their job while the credit would still be given to purebloods as their managers.

After finding out that nobody would offer her any significant job – all the while Percy (her boyfriend of almost 2 years) doing nothing to help her – Penny had decided to relocate in muggle world for time being and do a job there. When Penny told about this decision to Percy, he immediately broke their relationship on the grounds that he could not remain associated with her if she wanted to quit magical world. He also told her that she should take the job offered to her by ministry as that would allow her to remain in Magical world.

But the tragedies in her life had not finished. She had no qualification as far as education in muggle world was concerned. The best option she had was to complete the university work remotely – which would only start after the summer was over. Thus she had accepted the sales girl job at Harrods – simply to make use of time and get going with life for time being.

Harry was stunned to hear the story. He knew that there was some discrimination of muggleborns in the ministry and in magical world in general – his history and political classes with goblins had touched upon this subject – but the extent of such was exposed in front him by Penny. Ian Jason and Elin had also spoken bitterly about the magical world. But Harry had never thought that it was this big a problem. He vowed to himself that he would do everything in his power to stop this as soon as possible. He also now knew the silent powerbase of Voldemort – the purebloods of Ministry (at least most of them).

Once the story of misfortune suffered by Penny was done, Harry sympathized with her and promised that he would do anything and everything possible to change things in the future. He further explained her about his actual reason of meeting her.

He told, "Now that we have had the painful discussion behind us, let us concentrate on the future. As you have observed, I have changed quite drastically from what I was just few weeks back. This was because of the healing of my infamous scar. I have also come across my inheritance and it is quite huge – aging I think you have assumed as much. What I want to do with this is start some small business units which would generate small ward stones. Such objects are required by many and are very costly to make in wizarding world because only few people know how to make them correctly. I want to use the muggle machinery to make them. This would be possible only if I make my business with the help of squibs and muggleborns. Since you are the only muggleborn I know who has graduated, I want you to help me in this project."

Penny was thinking about this situation and the job offer. She was confused about acceptance of such job. On one hand the opportunity that Harry was discussing with her was exciting and great looking; but on the other hand she had suffered greatly by the magical world very recently and that too in a very unfortunate way. Thus she was hesitant to accept any such chance. So to stall the decision for little longer, she asked Harry about his finances.

Harry replied, "Ok. I got your point Penny. But understand that Potters were very old family in wizarding world and my ancestors had invested their money properly. We may not be as reach as say Malfoys' but we have lot of gold sitting idle in Gringotts vault. I was not aware about all this till recently but now that I am, I have lot more money thanks to my ancestors. I would prefer to use this money now in some constructing way rather than keep it as it is in Gringotts. Plus since I would be helping you to establish the business, Ministry permissions would be easy to get on my name rather than on your name."

Penny thought over this for a long time. She was unable to come to a firm decision just yet. The only positive about this offer from Harry was that she had a gut feeling that he would keep his promise to her and help her whenever needed. That he won't just use her to further his goals like many people she had encountered in magical world. Finally giving into his demands, she accepted the job from Harry and the risks associated with it.

She said, "Ok, Harry. I will do this job for you. But I want fifty percent share in profits. Secondly I have another suggestion about type of jobs that we could do. You are right in the assumption that Rune Carving could be done via machines. But we could also use machines to prepare potion ingredients. That would give us another market. Also there are very few potion masters in Briton and many purebloods require lots of potions daily. We could supply them the required potions via owl order. What do you think?"

Penny had suggested the Potion brewing as she was an accomplished potion brewer and rune specialist. The job Harry was talking about was thus ideal for her skillset. Also both jobs were possible to be done with the help of squibs and muggleborns.

Harry on the other hand was much relived that Penny had accepted the job. Initially he had planned to ask Remus to oversee this project, but that was with the assumption that Ragnok would be able to provide the list of squibs and muggleborns to Harry. When that particular option hit the dead end, he was thinking about the necessary modifications. When he met Penelope Clearwater at Harrods that same day he had his solution. The subsequent time spent with the attractive muggleborn witch only removed the any lingering doubts from his mind about her capability.

Thus Harry quickly accepted the conditions set by Penny and told her that if she wanted more share in Potions part of business, then he would be happy to do so. Penny decided that for now they should not bother about it and would work in fifty-fifty partnership deal. Harry was happy to hear that.

What followed after that particular moment was a whirlwind activity. The first thing they did was a long conversation about Harry's true goals – the ones he wanted to achieve in longer term. Once Penny gave the required oath to Harry about keeping his secrets, Harry explained his situation as Heir to some of the most prominent families – not only Potter but Pendragon and Peverell as well along with Gryffindor and Slytherin– and his plan to rebuild the image of his family back to its glory days in depth to her. Once Penny went through the basic plan of action, she immediately started working on it.

The next day Harry and Penny visited a nearby property dealer to get the general idea about available properties. Penny had told Harry that they should look property in the semi-industrial area of London so they could install the workplace without raising the eyebrows as well as to use it as a living accommodation. It would also help in transport for the workers as most of the work would be done by muggleborns and squibs and they all would be very familiar with muggle transport means which would be available in plenty at such place.

Harry agreed to this and they visited various properties that Penny had selected in the next few hours. Penny was initially surprised that Harry could do the Apparition – he was only 15 at that time. But Harry explained to her that he had acquired this skill while he was on medical leave to heal his cured scar. He also showed the Apparition badge that he had acquired from a neighboring country as a proof (It was a temporary badge that Ragnok had given him after learning about Harry's newest skill).

After looking through their list completely, Harry and Penny finalized the property near Hyde Park area. It was in the building named Bond Cruz and they were able to purchase top 4 floors of the building. This was very much in accordance with Harry's Plan as he wanted to use Fidelius Charm for part of his property for security reasons. Once he had seen the place, Harry had decided to use Fidelius on topmost floor of the building which he wanted to use as residence place in London.

As soon as the transaction was done, Harry and Penny had spent rest of the July securing the place. Harry had asked goblins to install best possible wards on all 4 floors. He himself had further increased the security by putting some new wards he had designed such as modified suppressors and magic limiters. He had further secured the place by adding wards to hide any kind of magical activity inside the ward area. Once this was done, they had gone about the job of setting up the workplace for 100+ strong work forces. The bottom most floor was used as the storage arear. The next floor was Potions lab while second topmost floor was decided to be used for rune based work. The topmost floor was reserved for Harry's private quarters.

-**TFB**-

Harry received the list of squibs from Ragnok and Ian early in August while still in the process of setting up the Bond Cruz place. It was a small list but for Harry it was sufficient to start the work. He had also asked Penelope to contact few muggleborns who were in similar situation to her. Penny had agreed to this and was looking into the matter. However they had decided to start the actual production sometime in middle September – well after Harry starts his school. This decision was taken to avoid any kind suspicion for Harry and due to time required for obtaining the work related licenses in both wizarding and muggle world. Harry had asked Axemage to procure the required licenses for his businesses – small ward stone generators and potion brewing plus the owl order based business.

Penny had decide to fix the workforce appointments only after getting the licenses and Axemage had assured Harry that it would be done before 1st September. This was also a relief to them as it gave them opportunity to decide the products they were going to make. They had decided to create a very basic ward stones for single purpose – such as muggle repellers or notice-me-not charms or disillusionment charm. As far as Potions were concerned they had taken a decision to concentrate on medical potions – such as blood replenishing or calming draught – and beauty potions.

As they worked with each other, Harry and Penny had grown to close each other and Penny had asked Harry to stay with her at her place near Stoneham Court Road in late July. "Um, Harry can I ask you something?"

When Harry replied positively, answering, "Yes Sure. What is on your mind?"

"You are staying in the hotel right? If you are ok then you can move to my place. What do you think?" Penny quarried.

Harry thought for a moment before answering her, "Yes. That is actually a good suggestion. I suppose, I can do that. I am staying near Highbury and if we are staying together then we can finish our work early. But you won't mind right?"

When Penny replied negatively, Harry then had moved with Penny on 27th July. There Penny had introduced Harry to another muggleborn – Natalie McDonald. Natalie was living near to Penny's house and their parents were very close friends. Natalie's parents had helped Penny to sort out various affairs related to muggle authorities after the accident that killed Penny's parents.

The three teenagers quickly became very close friends and they spent most of the time sharing general information with each other. Natalie had provided Harry another story of living in Gryffindor House and Hogwarts in general. Harry – for past 3 years – was considered as an outsider as far as Hogwarts was concerned – he had after all only 2 friends and his social circle were very small. Thus he was not aware of the internal politics that happened in Hogwarts.

The ground reality was very frightening. The muggleborn discrimination was as rampant at Hogwarts as it was in the magical world. If any muggleborn had the misfortune to meet the purebloods then it was often that they would end up in hospital wing. The sad part was that no action was taken against the perpetrators. Teachers would most likely turn a blind eye on such incidents and if somebody reported it then Prof. Snape would definitely protect them if the complaint was against Slytherin house. This was mostly because purebloods were careful enough to do such actions in deserted part of castle and there were just not enough teachers to petrol all parts of castle.

Add to this fact that Prof. Dumbledore's policy of forgiveness and what one would get is a very dangerous environment. In Natalie's year only, she was one of the top students but any major recognition was always given to Ginny Weasley or Romilda Vane simply because of their status as Pureblood witches. Natalie also told Harry about how Ginny hates her and Demelza Robins. This was because both Natalie and Demelza were superior to Ginny in academics and Quidditch respectively. This had infatuated Ginny to no end and she always looked for the opportunities to put those two down.

While they all were discussing the Hogwarts, Harry had explained some of his adventures in very moderate versions with Penny and Natalie. Harry had also taken a job of teaching wizarding culture to both witches as that part of education was left by Hogwarts. Also most of the books on these topics could only be found with old pureblood families – thus Hogwarts library was devoid of any such books. It was in these discussions; Natalie had asked Harry about food preparation in Hogwarts. Harry then explained how house elves are used for maintaining the Hogwarts.

However the topic of house elves had given another idea to Harry. That night, Harry had called his friend Dobby – the ex-Malfoy House Elf. After asking Dobby how he was doing, Harry found that Dobby was workless and master less. This was because the only Master that his magic would accept would be Harry himself. As Dobby explained to Harry this was due to fact that Dobby was in debt of Harry Potter who had deceived his old master in freeing Dobby and thus saving him. After thinking about this situation, Harry knew that he would have to accept Dobby sooner or later to be his personal elf. Otherwise Dobby would not be able to sustain the living for long – House elves needed a magic from their masters to sustain in the world.

Thus Harry very carefully explained his tentative plan to Dobby. He promised the little elf that once Harry leaves Hogwarts, he would take Dobby as his personal elf. Till then, Dobby could work in Hogwarts. Dobby happily accepted this as that would give him opportunity to serve Harry while he was still in Hogwarts. A house elf who was not bonded to Hogwarts or was free, could not serve their masters when they were in Hogwarts as a part of rigorous protections around the castle. Thus Dobby working in Hogwarts till Harry's graduation was a win-win situation for him. Also Hogwarts had enough ambient magic through which Dobby could sustain for that time period.

After this Harry asked Dobby if he could ward Bond Cruz place via elf magic to add extra protection. Dobby was really eager to do this, but explained to Harry that it could be done but he was not aware of the place yet as Harry was not his Master. Thus Harry took Dobby to Bond Cruz. There Harry explained various wards added by him along with goblins and their warders. After this Dobby told Harry that he would further strengthen these wards by elven magic. This would also stop any outside elves from spying on their place. Harry was happy with this and left Dobby to complete his task.

Adding Dobby to his force was proven masterstroke by Harry as over the next few days, Dobby had completely finished the furnishing of Harry's apartment home in Bond Cruz with the tips from both Penny and Natalie who were regular visitor to the place. All in all, Harry was able to move to Bond Cruz apartment on 7th August. This was a week after they all celebrated Harry's birthday with McDonald family on 31st July.

Harry received many gifts on his birthday including one from Sirius and Remus via an odd bird that looked like it came from Caribbean. Both Sirius and Remus had given him some books on obscure hexes and defense related magic. Ron and Hermione had also sent their first communication of the summer to Harry on his birthday. Hermione had given him a homework planner similar to what she had given to Ron last March. The timing of their communication had left Harry little bit hurt and angry at his friends. But Penny told him that he had no right of being angry with them as he had also not written to them. However his birthday mood was spoiled when Harry opened the food package sent by Ron. Harry's Lord Rings gave him indication that the food contained some kind of potions. Harry was little shocked to find this, but decided to postpone the investigation for later date and then disposed away the food package immediately with the help from Dobby.

He had also received various presents from his squib teachers – Ian, Elin and Jason – along with his account managers from Gringotts. Even Dobby had given him a gift – a sock – and Harry had to admit that it revived some fond old memories. But his birthday day was made very special by both Penny and Natalie (who had taken an extra liking to the Hero of wizarding world). Harry had also started liking the young witch as she was very intelligent and was much more open as far as magic was concerned than Hermione. Often one could find the two Gryffindors sitting together discussing various magical subjects. Harry had allowed a free access to Bond Cruz to Natalie so she could practice some magic there. This helped Natalie to refine her skills.

On his birthday both Harry and Penny had taken a day off. Penny had then taken both Harry and Natalie to day long London trip and they all had enjoyed various muggle sights and adventures. Harry had revisited the zoo from where he had let the Boa Constrictor free all those years ago. They had also watched the movie in the afternoon. For Harry it was very much a new and wonderful experience. Penelope had planned for special celebration dinner on 31st with Natalie's parents who were thrilled to finally meet Harry Potter. Their daughter had explained them the status of Harry in wizarding world.

It was after the dinner when all the guests were in sitting room when Natalie's father - Mr. David McDonald – asked some tough questions to Harry. He started, "Mr. Potter, first of all once more a very Happy Birthday to you. Also I would like to thank you for the help you have provided to my daughters and yes I do consider Penelope as my own. I think it would be a very good opportunity for Penny to work in magical world while getting a strong protection. But I have few questions for you. Can you answer them, if you don't mind?"

Harry not expecting anything serious matter and mostly expecting the questions on magical world replied positively, "Of course sir. I will answer the questions if I have the answer for it. Please go ahead."

Satisfied with his answer, Mr. McDonald asked, "I would be blunt here Mr. Potter, so excuse me. What are your intentions towards Penelope Mr. Potter? Because ever since you have re-entered in her life, you and your project are the only things that she talks about. So I would like to know what your future plans with respect to her are?"

Harry was totally caught off guard with this particular questioning line. Just to get few more moments to get control of himself he looked at Penny only to see that she was blushing furiously. Natalie was no different either. So he concluded that they might have thought about long term relationship with him. That also explained the offer from Penny to take him to her home. But right now he had to concentrate back question David had asked.

Harry sighed and answered, "On this issue I would be frank with you Mr. McDonald. But before I answer your question, there are few things you must know about me and magical world in general. So I would give you brief summary of those things before answering this question. Is that ok with you?"

Receiving the acceptance nod from Mr. McDonald, Harry continued, "You see, in magical world, Polygamy Relations are acceptable. It is also advisable and in some cases compulsory for the Lords of more than one house. So for example if I have inherited two houses then it is advisable that I take two wives to continue both house lines. In theory it is possible that if I produced to sons with a single mother then I can assign one house to each of them. But in some cases – mostly darker background families – it is necessary to have one Lady for one house. So in such cases it is mandatory that I should marry to two different girls or I would have to lose one of the houses."

David interjected here, "But this is just plain wrong isn't it?"

Harry replied, "Yes it is Mr. McDonald. But magic works in different ways than logic. Understand that when these laws were created that Polygamy was common place in both muggle and magical world. This was mainly created so that family secrets are protected from others – their enemies. It is just that where muggle world has adapted to new changes, magical world has not. Also keep in the mind that apart from few pureblood lords who like to treat women as if they own them, polygamy is not practiced commonly by most of the magical world. But it is still legal to have more than one wife in wizarding world. It also allows settling of the life-debts more easily."

Harry waited again to gauge the reactions from all present. The two witches – Natalie and Penelope – were quietly contemplating the information while waiting for more. The two adults – Mr. and Mrs. McDonald – were trying to understand this new information. Then finally Mr. McDonald asked another question, "So, if I allow my daughter to marry some pureblood child, then it is quite possible that he may take another wife?"

Harry smiled and answered, "I hope it is not that simple, Mr. McDonald. Understand that most purebloods won't come near someone like Natalie or Penny as according to them these two are mudbloods – a derogatory term used for muggleborn witches and wizards by purebloods. So the only way a muggleborn could marry someone pureblood was because of love between them or because of use of force. In first case we can be sure that it would be least likely that the pureblood in question would marry again just for the sake of it. In second case though, your guess is as good as mine."

David thought about this answer and then asked again, "So does it happen very often to muggleborn witches – I mean the second case?"

Harry answered, "I don't know Mr. McDonald. I seriously don't know. But I will ask some of my contacts to look into this to get more information. I only know so much because of the situation I found myself in this summer. But let me assure you of one thing here. That if anybody tries to do some questionable things to either Penny or Natalie, they would have to answer me. I have enough sway in magical world – both financially and politically – through which I can and would destroy those purebloods."

Once Mr. McDonald allowed Harry to continue his tale, Harry obliged, "Now this was the background that you had to know about before I give you the answer to your original question. Do I have any plan to form a more intimate relationship with Penny or Natalie? The answer to that question is No for now. I am only 15 and I have not given a serious thought o dating and marriage yet."

Before anybody could interject, Harry continued, "But you must understand few more things about my situation, Mr. McDonald. I have inherited 5 houses and that means I have to marry 5 times in the future. I confirmed this inheritance just few days back and have decided that for now I am not going to bother with it too much. But that does not mean, I adverse to any such relationship. We will see. Natalie would be there in the Hogwarts and I plan to spend more time with her. If in the end we both are comfortable with our relationship, we may continue it. At this moment though, we are just very good friends who enjoy each other's company. As far as Penny is concerned, again I am not sure about future. In magical world four year age difference is not big. So if we do like each other and if we do decide to pursue this relationship at next level then we will see where it leads then. As is the case with Natalie, Penny is my good friend and business partner. Nothing more, nothing less I believe."

David was mostly satisfied with the answer from Harry. But he still had one more question. "Harry you said, you have inherited 5 houses. How is that possible?"

Harry smiled little ruefully before answering, "I won't lie to you Mr. McDonald. The circumstances in which the family magic judged me worthy are very private. So I will not share them with you now. May be in the future I might tell you the story behind it. But for now understand this Potter were very old Pureblood family and hence we had chance to succeed quite a few old families which are survived by Magic only. Such family magic remains active till a worthy heir is found out and it will only end if last Lord of house performs the necessary ritual. But I was judged worthy of my titles by the most sacred of magic – the Family magic. So that is how I inherited the 5 houses."

"Is it then possible that my daughter is also from some old family lost or forgotten over the time?" David asked.

Harry replied, "Yes. It is quite possible. My mother – who was also a muggleborn witch – was part of some old families through their squib line – those who are born in magical house but does not have magic in them. We can check it via Gringotts."

Now that the situation between the three teens was much clearer, all five of them spent rest of the evening watching old film on TV before finally calling it a day.

The days after his birthday were spent in formalizing the plans for new venture they were opening – the P-Cube Corporations (in reference to the Three main Families represented by Harry; Pendragon, Peverell and Potter). Harry had asked Penny to open a separate account in RBS. Then with Sharpclaw's help, Harry had linked it with his Gringotts vaults. Penny was then given the directors' position for P-Cube. All the paper work in muggle world was done on her name while in magical world it was done under the banner of Lord Peverell. This was actually done based on the suggestion given by both Axemage and Sharpclaw as it would help them in speeding up the process of acquiring the required licenses.

Harry had also replied back a thank you letter to each one of his friends. He had also hinted to Sirius and Remus for returning back to Briton. He wanted to use their help in search of Horcruxes. But the highlight of August was when Penny decided to move to his place at Bond Cruz accompanied by Natalie for rest of the vacation. She was a bit reluctant about this move previously but then agreed to move to his place so as to keep him in line.

After the clear the air discussion with Natalie's parents, all three had avoided the topic of dating though they had grown increasingly closer to each other over the past month and Harry would sometimes (privately) dream about being with her in longtime relationship. He had grown to love her attitude and her habit of giving hugs. Penny had correctly guessed that Harry was raised in a loveless household – by the way he avoided that topic with her – and was thus making every effort to show him her affection. They were much nicer hugs than the one he would normally receive from Mrs. Weasley or Hermione.

Soon the day came when Harry had planned to leave the Bond Cruz in order to go to Burrow. He had promised Ron that he would visit Weasley Family from 20th Aug – just in time for Quidditch World Cup Final. Mr. Weasley was able to procure some of the best seats for the Final Match of Quidditch World Cup and Ron had graciously invited Harry to tag along. Harry was delighted by the invitation and had readily accepted it. Harry had told Ron that he would visit Burrow via Knight Bus since he wanted to keep his new living arrangements in secret as long as possible. However the reason he gave to Ron for Weasley family to avoid 4 Privet Drive was that it would bode well for Harry's health if interaction of Dursley with Magical Family such as Weasley is kept to minimum.

On the morning of 20th Harry was packing his material in his trunk with the help of Natalie and Penny. They had decided to meet each other in the Diagon Ally for Natalie's shopping on 28th August – so that even Harry could accompany them. Harry also promised the two that he would bring them some gifts from Quidditch World Cup arena. After checking once more that he had everything he needed and a tearful goodbye from Natalie, Harry flagged the knight bus to travel to the village of Ottery St. Catchpole, with the excitement of new adventure fueling him on his way.

**To Be Continued.**

**Author Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing in advance. This chapter is not proof corrected. I do not have a beta writer who would kindly do such things so you may find few mistakes. Also please note that English is not my First Language. So for any mistakes in the chapter, I take total responsibility for it and am very sorry for the same.**

**Thanks for the reviews. Let me make few points clear here. I normally do not have time to respond via **

**Also please do not forget to Review, as it helps me in ironing out small missing holes in plot.**

**Here I have decided to use Natalie McDonald and Romilda Vane in Ginny's year (i.e. Class of 1998). This is to spare efforts of creating some OC's in that year bracket. So please bear with that particular mistake (it is intentional guys).**

**Also about some points raised in reviews:**

**About effect of time chamber on aging: For this story, Harry has not aged significantly while he was in time chamber. The way I see it is as that Harry is bit more than 14 years of age, but not old enough to be passed as a full adult as far as body physic is concerned. He does not have any experience only skill. I considered this as a part of Magic of Time Chamber. He could have aged significantly and damaged his body in the process only if he would have used the chamber for say one year continuously in normal time frame (about 1000 years in time chamber). Since harry used it for relatively insignificant time, I have decided to not age him so much. Also the Aging impact has more to do with how Harry's body has developed up due to hard training while he was inside the chamber.**

**Harry's Abilities: Harry has to study Metamorphous and Shadow Mage abilities on his own. He has the potential to use those abilities and he has some amount of control over Metamorphous but has almost zero idea about shadow mage. These would play significant part in the future. Please wait till then. I don't want to reveal any more about it, but we would visit these topics in next 2-3 chapters.**

**I had actually planned to add the QWC in this chapter only. But the chapter length was increasing all the time and thus decided to cut the chapter before his visit to Burrow. **

**Expect the next chapter in about months' time. I have started the next chapter and have done some basic drafting for the next chapter as well. Typically I am planning to write 1 chapter per month.**

**Also please post any suggestions you have in the reviews. **

**Thanks once more and bye for now.**

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**This chapter was published on 20****th**** February 2015. **

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